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IX-X 



JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY STUDIES 

'"""'^ IN 

HISTOEICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE 
HERBERT B. ADAMS, Editor 



History is past Politics and Politics present History.-Freema?i 



ELEVENTH SERIES 



IX-X 



BERNARD C. STEINER, Ph. D. 



baltimore 
The Johns Hopkins Press 

PUBLISHED MONTHtY 

September- October, 1893 




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CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 7 

PeriodI.— 1636-1774.— Indian Slavery 9 

Colonial Legislation on Slaveiy 11 

Trials Concerning Slaves in Colonial Days 17 

Social Condition of Slaves in Colonial Times ........ 20 

Period II.— 1774-1869.— Slaves in the Revolution 24 

Opinions of the Forefathers on Slavery 28 

State Legislation on Slavery 30 

Cases Adjudicated in the Higher Courts with Reference to 

Slavery 37 

Miss Prudence Crandall and her School 45 

Nancy Jackson vs. Bulloch 52 

The Negroes on the " Amistad " 56 

Growth of the Anti-Slavery Spirit 68 

Social Condition of Slaves 78 

Appendix 83 



HISTORY OF SLAVERY LN CONNECTICOT. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Few questions have been more interesting to the American 
people than slavery, and the number of works which have 
appeared upon the subject has been proportional to the 
interest aroused. The slavery of negroes has been discussed 
from almost every point of view, and yet the influence of 
slavery upon individual States of the Union and its dififerent 
history and characteristics in the several States have not 
received the attention they deserve. There have been two 
able works dealing with this branch of the subject, tracing 
thoroughly the course of the institution of slavery in the two 
States of Massachusetts and Maryland.'' As Massachusetts 
was the first State of the original number to free her slaves, 
and as Maryland was a typical Border State, these mono- 
graphs, apart from their accuracy and completeness, have 
been valuable contributions to the study of slavery- in the 
separate States, but they stand almost alone. 

It has been the intention of the writer to take up the history 
of slavery^ in his native State — Connecticut. The develop- 
ment of slavery and the conditions surrounding it there were 
not greatly dififerent from those existing in the larger State 
immediately to the north, yet there were certain phases of 
the " peculiar institution " in Connecticut which yield a 



^ I allude to Dr. Geo. Moore's " Notes on Slavery in Massachu- 
setts " and Dr. J. R. Brackett's ''Negro in Maryland." Tremain's 
" Slaveiy in the District of Columbia," in Univ. of Neb. Studies, and 
Ingle's "Negro in the District of Columbia. "in J. H. U. Studies, are 
noteworthy- See also Morgan's brief account of " Slavery in New- 
York " in the Am. Hist. Ass. Papers. I might add Ed. Bettle, 
" Notices of Negro Slavery as Connected with Pennsylvania," Vol. 
I., p. 365 ff., Penn. Hist. Soc. Memou-s. 



8 Histonj of Slavery in Connecticut. [378 

noteworthy return to the student.' Though the formal aboU- 
tion of slavery in Connecticut did not take place until 1848, 
there had been practically very few slaves in the State since 
1800, and the treatment of the slave had been always compar- 
atively mild and lenient. In the history of the opinion of the 
people in regard to slaver)^, we shall find two fairly well 
marked-ofif periods, under each of which we shall treat separ- 
ately the legal, political, and social aspects of slavery. The 
first of these periods extends from the settlement of the col- 
ony until the passage of the Non-importation Act of 1774, 
and is characterized by a general acquiescence in the exist- 
ence of slavery and a somewhat harsh slave code. 

The second period, extending from 1774 to 1861, is marked 
by the diminution and extinction of slaven'. It might be 
divided into two subdivisions. The first subdivision extends 
from October, 1774, to the rise of the Abolitionists, about 
1830, and is characterized by the gradual emancipation of the 
slaves and amelioration of their condition. 

In the second subdivision, lasting from about 1830 till the 
Civil War. we find the formal abolition of slavery and the 
rise of the slavery question as a political issue, culminating in 
the resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act, and ending in the 
Act of 1857. The period closes with the acceptance of the 
Fifteenth Amendment in 1869. 



' The author regrets that he was unable to consult Dr. Wm. C. 
Fowler's "Historical Status of the Negro in Connecticut" until 
these pages were passing through the press. Any new matter 
therein contained has been embodied in foot-notes, as far as possi- 
ble. Tlie labor and research Dr. Fowler bestowed on his paper 
make it very valuable. It appeared in Dawson's Historical Maga- 
zine for 1874. Vol. XXIH.. pp. 12-18, 81-85, 148-153, 260-266. 



PERIOD I.— 1636-1774. 
Indian Slavery. 

In Connecticut, as in many otlier States, the first slaves 
were not of African race, but were aborigines, taken in battle 
and sold as slaves, in the same manner as the Anglo- 
Saxon forefathers of the early settlers had- sold the captives 
of their spear, over a millennium before. After the fierce and 
bloody Pequod War, the colonists found on their hands a 
number of captive Indians, whose disposition formed a press- 
ing question. It did not take long to decide it. To the 
shame of the conquerors, " Ye prisoners were devided, some 
to those of the River [Connecticut] and the rest to lis " of 
Massachusetts.' Of those taken by the latter, they sent " the 
male children to Bermudas, by Mr. William Pierce, and the 
women and maid children are disposed about in the towns. 
There have now been slain and taken, in all, about 700." 
Connecticut's disposition of her share was, doubtless, much 
the same as that described above. In the same spirit, the 
Articles of Confederation of the United New England Colo- 
nies, in which both Connecticut and New Haven were 
included, when drawn up on May 19, 1643, provided that 
" the whole advantage of the warr (if it please God to bless 
their Endeavours), whether it be in lands, goods, or persons, 
shall be proportionally divided among the said Confederates."' 

The Articles of Confederation also provided " that, if any 
servant run away from his master into any of these confed- 
erated jurisdictions, that, in such case, upon certificate of one 
magistrate in the jurisdiction of which the said sei'vant fled, 
or upon other due proof, the said servant shall be delivered, 
either to his master or any other, that pursues and brings 
such certificate or proof." This was the first fugitive slave 
law in force in Connecticut. 

^ Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Series IV., Vol. III., p. 360. 
-Plymouth Col. Rec. Vol. IX.. p. 4. 



10 History of Slaverif in Connecticut. [380 

Since it was found that certain Indian villages harbored 
fugitive Indians, the Confederation, on Sept. 5, 1646, decided 
that such villages might be raided and the inhabitants carried 
ofif, women and children being spared as much as possible, 
and added, to its eternal shame, that "because it will be 
chargeable keeping Indians in prison and, if they should 
escape, they ai'e liable to prove more insolent and dangerous 
after, it was thought fit that upon such seizure . . . the magis- 
trates of the jurisdiction deliver up the Indians seized to the 
party or parties endamaged, either to serve or to be shipped 
out and exchanged for negroes, as the cause will justly bear.'" 
The Connecticut Code of 1646, following this resolve in its 
language, recognizes Indian and negro slavery." 

The Confederation, in 1646, took active part in endeavor- 
ing to make Gov. Kieft of New Netherlands return " an 
Indian captive liable to publicke punishment fled from her 
master at Hartford " and " entertained in your house at Hart- 
ford and, though required by the magistrate," she was " under 
the hands of your agent there denyed, and was said to have 
been either marryed or abused by one of your men." " Such 
a servant," they say, " is parte of her master's estate and a 
more considerable part than a beast; our cliildren will not 
longe be secure if this be suffered." This last sentence clearly 
shows the outcropping of the patriarchal idea. Kieft refused 
to give her up, and said, " as concerns the Barbarian hand- 
made," it is " apprehended by some, that she is no slave, but 
a freewoman, because she was neither taken in war, nor 
bought with price, but was in former time placed with me by 
her parents for education.'" By the Inter-Colonial Treaty of 
Sept. 19, 1650, the provision of the Articles of Confederation, 
in regard to fugitives, was extended to include the intercourse 
of the New Englanders and the Dutch.'' King Philip's War 
again threw many Indian captives into the settlers' hands and, 



' Iliizju-d. II., p. G3. 

''Hllc " Iiullaiis." (Vmii. Hcc. 1.. Tt'M. Not in K<.'visioii of 1715. 
IMyiiioiith lU'conls. IX.. I'., M, IIM). 
'Hiird, " Tjiw of Fn'otloin niul I^)iulap' in the V. S.." I., 209. 



381] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 11 

on May lo, 1677/ the General Court decreed, "for the 
prevention of those Indians running away, that are disposed 
in service by the Authority, that are of the enemie and 
have submitted to mercy, such Indians, if they be taken, 
shall be in the power of his master to dispose of him, as a 
captive by transportation out of the country." The syntax 
of the enactment is confused, its cruelty is clear. 

The number of Indian slaves seems to have gradually de- 
creased from death, interniarriage with negroes, and emanci- 
pation, though as late as May i, 1690, Gov. Leisler of New 
York met with the Commissioners of Massachusetts, Plym- 
outh, and Connecticut, and they all covenanted that in the 
contemplated Indian war, " all plunder and captives (if any 
happen) shall be divided to the ofBcers and soldiers, accord- 
ing to the custom of War."' 

Though the colonists entertained no doubt of their right to 
sell Indian captives, better Puritan nature revolted against the 
idea of perpetual hereditary slavery, and, as early as 1722, 
we find doubts expressed as to the status of the child of an 
Indian slave.' 

Dr. Fowler states that Indian slaves were not considered 
as valuable as negroes. 

Further remarks as to legislation in regard to Indian 
slaves will be found in a subsequent section. 

Colonial Legislation on Slavery. 

The earliest law on any of Connecticut's statute-books in 
regard to slavery is a quotation from Exodus xxi. 16, placed 
tenth among the Capital Laws of Connecticut, on Dec. i, 
1642, " If any man stealeth a man or mankind, he shall be 
put to death." This, however, was understood, of course, 
only to include in its protection persons of white race. 

When or how negro slavery was introduced into Connecti- 
cut, we have no records to show. " It was never directly 

^ Conn. Col. Rec, II., 308. 

^N. Y. Doc. Hist, n., pp. 134, 157. 

^ Trumbull's "Connecticut," Vol. I., p. 417. Fowler, p. 153. 



12 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [382 

established by statute," says the editor of the Revision of the 
State's Laws in 1821,' " but has been indirectly sanctioned 
by various statutes and frequently recognized by courts, so 
that it may be said to have been established by law."" Few 
slaves \vere imported at first, and, on May 17, 1660, we find 
the first reference to negroes in the Connecticut Records.'" 
Then the distrust of bondmen and the fear of treachery in 
slaves, nearly always shown by masters, is revealed in the 
General Court's order " that neither Indian nor negar servants 
shall be required to train, watch, or ward in the Colony."' 

The number of negroes was " few," not above thirty, only 
two of whom were christened, in 1680,'' and not until ten 
years later had they sufficiently increased so as to call the atten- 
tion of the legislators to their regxilation. Connecticut began 
her black code in October, 1690," by passing several meas- 
ures, providing that a " negro, mulatto, or Indian servant " 
found wandering out of the bounds of the town to which 
he belonged, without a ticket or pass from an Assistant, 
or Justice of the Peace, or his owner, shall be accounted 
a runaway and may be seized by any one finding him, 
lirought before the next authority and returned to his master, 
who must pay the charges. Even a ferr}anan, transporting 
a slave without a pass, was liable to a penalty of twenty shil- 
lings for each ofTense.' A free negro without a pass must 
pay the costs if stopped and brought before a magistrate. 
The last two laws were repealed in October, 1797.* 
The next statute, save one, referring to slaves was passed 

' Probably Swift, author of the well-known " System." 
« Revision of 1821, Title 93, Sec. 7, note. 

'Dr. Fowler ('"Hist. Stiitus," p. 12) says negro slaves were in 
New Haven Colony in 1()44. 

M'onu. Col. Hoc, I.. ;yo. 

''They came sonicllincs (lircc and four n ye.ir from Barbadoes. 
<'onn. Col. Roc, 111., ]). 2'.>S. Answer to Queries. 

• Conn. ("„l. lu-c. IV.. ,,. 40. Revision of 1808. Title CL., Cli. I., 
Sees. 1-4. 

"Tliis :iinount was latt-r chanjriMl lo $,";.,'U. 

" lliud. II.. p. 42. 



383] History of Slavery In Connecticut. 13 

in 1703/ This shows clearly the survival in colonial days of 
the potcstas of the pater familias coming down from the 
absolute dominion of the house-father in ancient times. It 
prohibits any " licensed innkeeper, victualler, taverner, or 
retailer of strong drink " from " suffering any one's sons, 
apprentices, servants, or negroes to sit drinking in his house, 
or have any manner of drink there, without special order from 
parents or masters." 

Slaves seem now, for some time, to be repressed by laws 
continually growing harsher. In May, 1708," the General 
Court, taking into consideration that " divers rude and evil- 
minded persons, for the sake of filthy lucre, do receive prop- 
erty stolen by slaves," and desiring to prevent this and to better 
govern the slaves, decreed that any one buying or receiving 
from slaves property without an order from their masters, must 
return the property and double its value in addition, or, if he 
has disposed of the original property, treble its value, and, 
if he will not do this, he is to be whipped with not over twenty 
stripes. The slaves caught in theft were to be whipped with 
not over thirty stripes, whether the receivers of the goods 
from them were found or not. Further, " whereas negro and 
mulatto servants or slaves^ are become numerous in some 
parts c . this Colonic and are very apt to be turbulent and 
often quarrelling with white people to the great disturbance 
of the peace," it is enacted that a negro disturbing the 
peace or offering to strike a white person, is to be subject 
to a penalty of not over thirty stripes. 

In spite of these harsher laws, emancipation was becoming 
somewhat common, and the Colony feared that it would have 
to support negroes whose years of usefulness had been spent 
in work for their masters, and who were manumitted by them, 

' Conn. Col. Rec., IV., 438. A penalty of 10 shillings was to be 
imposed for a breach of this act. It does not seem to have been 
included in any of the revisions of the statutes. 

-Conn. Col. Rec, v., p. 52. This was m force in 1808. Title CL., 
Ch. I., Sec. 5. 

3 Revision of 1750, p. 229. 



14 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [384 

when old and helpless. To prevent this, in May, 1702/ the 
legislature provided that slaves, set free and coming to want, 
must be relieved by the owners, their heirs, executors, or 
administrators. To this act a second one was added in 171 1, 
providing that if the owners or their representatives refused 
to maintain such emancipated slaves, it should be the duty 
of the selectmen of the various towns to do so, and then to 
sue the owners, or tiieir representatives, for the expense' 
incurred. 

The terrible war between the South Carolinians and the 
Tuscaroras, ending with the overthrow of the latter, left a 
large number of Indian prisoners in the hands of the Caro- 
linians, who shipped them as slaves to the other colonies. 
This importation of vengeful, warlike savages alarmed the 
people of Connecticut and led to the first steps towards pro- 
hibition of the slave trade. The Governor and Council met 
on July 8, 171 5, and considering the fact that several have 
brought into the colony Carolina Indians, " which have 
committed many cruel and bloody outrages " there, and may 
draw off " our Indians," if their importation be continued, and 
so " much mischief " may follow, they decided to prohibit 
importation of Indian slaves, until the meeting of the As- 
sembly, and to require each ship entering port ^^dth Indians 
on board to give bond of £50 to transport them from the 
colony in twenty days. Further, Indians brought into the 
colony hereafter are to be " kept in strictest custody," con- 
fined and " prevented from communicating with other In- 
dians," unless owner give the same bond as above to remove 
them from Connecticut in twenty days.' 

The next October, the General Court, copying a Massa- 
chusetts Act of 1712, made the prohibition of bringing in 
Indian slaves permanent, since " divers conspiracies, out- 
rages, barbarities, murders, burglaries, thefts, and other no- 



^ Conn. Col. Roc, IV., 375. A similar act to the same piu-pose was 
passed in May, 1703. Conn. Col. Rec, FV., 408. See p. 32. 

'Conn. Col. Rec, V., 233. The whole was in the revision of 1S08, 
Title CL., Ch. I., Sec. 11. 

3 Conn. Col. Rec, V., 516. 



385] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 15 

torious crimes at sundry times and, especially of late, have 
been perpetrated by Indians and other slaves, ... being of 
a malicious and vengeful spirit, rude and insolent in their 
behaviour, and very ungovernable, the overgreat number of 
which, considering the different circumstances in this Colony 
from the plantations in the islands and our having consider- 
able numbers of Indians, natives of our countr}^, . . . may 
be of pernicious consequence."^ The legislature decreed the 
forfeiture of all Indians hereafter imported, and the payment 
of a fine of £50 by shipmaster or other persons bringing 
Indians. 

The preamble quoted above shows that this measure was 
not prompted by afifection for the slaves, but by fear of them ; 
but it was the beginning of the end — the first law restricting 
slaveholders' rights in Connecticut, to be followed by one and 
another of the same restrictive kind, until all men who trod 
the soil of the State were free. 

The next law on the records was passed in May, 1 723, and 
provided that a slave out of doors after 9 P. M., without 
order from master or mistress, might be secured and brought 
before a Justice of the Peace by any citizen and, if found 
guilty, should receive not over ten stripes, unless the master 
were willing to pay a fine of ten shillings' to release him. 
Any one who should receive such a slave must, on conviction, 
pay a like fine, half to the town and half to the informer. 

The black code was completed by the act of May, 1730, 
declaring that a slave speaking such words as would be 
actionable in a free person, should be whipped, on conviction, 
with not over forty stripes and sold for the costs, unless the 
master were willing to pay them. However, there was a ray 
of justice in the provision of the law that the slave might 
make the same pleas and ofifer the same evidence as a free 
person.' 

^ Conn. Col. Rec, V., 534. Fee of 2s. 6d. for registering slave, 
which must he done in twenty-four hours after arrival. The slave 
must be taken away within a month. 

-Amount to be paid later changed to .$1.67. Conn. Col. Rec, VI., 
391. Repealed by Ch. IV., Oct. 1797. 

3 Conn. Col. Rec. VII., 390. In Revision of 1750, p. 40. 



16 History of fSlacery m Connecticut. [386 

From this time on, the more engrossing subjects of the 
struggle between the French and the colonists, and the 
growth of material prosperity seem to have thrust aside the 
topic of slavery from the legislative halls. For forty-four 
years w^e find few more laws/ It is true, however, that at 
the General Assembly in 1738, "it was inquired — whether 
the infant slaves of Christian masters may be baptized in 
the right of their masters, they solemnly promising to train 
them in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord; and 
whether it is the duty of such masters to ofifer such children 
and thus religiously to promise." To the great credit of 
the colonists, both these questions were answered affimia- 
tively, and thus the devout Christians of Connecticut, pre- 
serving the solidarity of the family, unconsciously went back 
to the early Aryan custom, that the God of the house-father 
should be worshiped by all under his sway. The growth 
of free ideas,"^ the coming of the Revolution, the increase of 
the slaves, " injurious," it was thought, to the poor and "in- 
convenient" — for the best motives are apt to be mixed of 
good and evil — led, in October, 1774, to the f^nactment of the 
law that " no Indian, negro, or mulatto slave shall at any time 
hereafter'^ be brought or imported into this State,* by sea 
or land, from any place or places whatsoever, to be disposed 
of, left, or sold w^ithin the State," and any offender against 
this law should pay iioo." So the State set herself as reso- 
lutely against the slave trade, as she was destined to do later 
against slavery itself. 



' In 1727 it was enacted that masters and mistresses of Indian 
children were to use their utmost endeavors to teach them to read 
I'viifilish, aud to instruct them in the Christian faith. Repriut of 
\T.M, p. 339. Hurd, I., p. 272. 

'Conn. Col. Rec, XIV., 155. May, 1773, "Negro's memorial post- 
poned to October." Nothing more of it. 

3 Conn. Col. Rec, XIV., 329. 

^Note the early use of tlie word. 

f- Later the sum was fixed at $334. By act of October, 179S, such 
prosecutions must be bi^guu in three years. Revision of 1808, Title 
CI., Ch. III. By Revision of 1821, Title 93, Sec. 5, tine put at $350. 



387] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 17 

A good review of the legal condition of the slave in these 
days is given by Judge Reeves,^ who, '* lest the slavery, which 
prevailed in this State, be forgotten," mentioned " some 
things that show that slavery here was very far from being 
of the absolute rigid kind. The master had no control over 
the life of his slave. If he killed him, he was liable to the 
same punishment, as if he killed a freeman. The master 
was as liable to be sued by the slave, in an action for beating, 
and wounding, or for immoderate chastisement, as he would 
be if he had thus treated an apprentice. A slave was capa- 
ble of holding property in character of devisee or legatee. 
If the master should take away such property, his slave 
would be entitled to an action against him by his prochei?i 
ami. From the whole, we see that slaves had the same right 
of life and property as apprentices, and that the difference 
betwixt them was this, an apprentice is a servant for time 
and the slave is a ser\'ant for life."' 

Trials concerning Slaves in Colonial Days. 

I have been able to obtain but few recorded cases in which 
the question of freedom or slavery came up in the courts 

^ Law of Baron and Femme, pp. 340-1. Eeeves says, " If a slave 
married a free woman, with the consent of his master, he was eman- 
cipated ; for his master had suffered him to contract a relation 
inconsistent with a state of slavery." Dane's Abridgment, IL, p. 
313, says, '■'In Connecticut the slave was, by statute, specially for- 
bidden to contract." Vide Hurd, IL, p. 43. 

2 In the Code of 16.50, under the title, " Masters, Sojourners, Ser- 
vants," the last named are forbidden, under penalty, to trade ^^■ith- 
out permission of their masters, and provision is made for their 
recapture by pubUe authority if they run away. Refractory ser- 
vants are to be pimished by extension of their time of service. 
The lawmakers, probably, had tn mind the class known as indented 
servants, or redemptioners. m formulating this act. (Conn. Rec, I., 
539.) In the Revision of 1715, title " Debts," it was provided that a 
debtor without estate " shall satisfy the debt by service, if the 
creditor shall require it, iu which case he shall not be disposed in 
service to any but of the English nation," to prevent the sale of 
the debtor to the French in Canada. Delinquents under a penal 
law were, by an act of 1725, to be disposed of at service to any 
inhabitant of the Colony " to defray the Costs." (Reprint 1737, p. 
314.) 



18 Bistort/ of Slavery in Connecticut. [388 

during tliis first period. In the end of 1702 or beginning 
of 1703, a slave, Abda, belonging to Capt. Thomas Richards 
of Hartford, escaped from his master and was succored by 
Capt. Joseph Wadsworth of Hartford, who, on Feb. 12th, 
1703, opposed the constable in executing a writ of arrest on 
Abda. This early fugitive slave case was brought before the 
Governor and Council on Feb. 25.^ They recommended 
the County Court to examine the case. Apparently Abda 
brought an action on the case against Mr. Richards, as a 
counter suit, claiming damages of £20 from his master, " for 
his unjust holding and detaining the said Abda in his service 
as his bondsman, for the space of one year past." The ver- 
dict was for ii2 damages, "thereby virtually establishing 
Abda's right to freedom," which he, a mulatto, seems to have 
claimed largely on account of his white blood.^ 

Mr. Richards pressed the case further and, in May, 1704, 
obtained from the General Court an order to have a hearing 
before it in October, on his petition concerning Abda.' At 
that time the case was brought up and the fugitive was re- 
turned to his master, as Gov. Saltonstall said, " according to 
the laws and constant practice of this Colony and all other 
plantations (as well as by the civil law) such persons as are 
born of negro bondwomen are themselves in like condition, 
i. e. born in servitude.'' Nor can there be any precedent in 
this Government, or any of Her Majesty's plantations, pro- 
duced to the contrary and, though the law of this Colony 
doth not say that such persons as are born of negro woman 
and supposed to be mulattoes shall be slaves (which was 
needless, because of the constant practice by which tliey are 
held as such), yet it saith expressly that no man shall put 
away or make free his negro or mulatto slave, etc., which 



» Conn. Col. Rec, XV., 548. 

"Moore's "Notes on Slavery," p. 112, quoting J. H. Trumbull In 
Conn. Conrant, Nov. 9. 1850. Fowler. " Hist. Status," pp. 14-16. 

"Conn. Col. Rec, IV., 478. Papers in INIiscollaneous, II., pp. 10-21. 

* This follovrinp: as a precedent the Roman Law maxim, "Partus 
sequitur venti-em," at th.is early day in Nmv England is noteworthy. 



389] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 19 

undeniably shows and declares an approbation of such ser- 
vitude, and that mulattoes may be held as slaves -within this 
government."' 

A later fugitive slave' we find advertised for in the 
New York Jl/ercu/y on July 28, 1760, and the adver- 
tisement has many little touches which go to show how 
slaves lived and were treated. " Run away from Abraham 
Davenport of Stamford in Conn., the 4th of June instant, a 
Mulatto Man Slave named Vanhall, aged 31 years, about 
5 feet 4 or 5 inches high, very swarthy; has a small Head 
and Face, a large Mouth, and has an odd Action with his 
Head, when talking with any Person ; has very long Arms 
and large Hands for a Person of his size and has an old 
Countenance for one of his Age; his Hair, like others of 
his kind was but lately cut oflf; was brought up to the Farm- 
ing business, is a lively active Fellow and pretends to under- 
stand the Violin. Had on, when he went away, a Felt Hat, 
a Grey Cut Wig, a light homespun Flannel lappelled Vest, 
which had been lined with fine old Cotton and Linnen 
Ticken, Doeskin Breeches, he took several pairs of Stock- 
ings and one or two pairs of Shoes, a Violin and a small 
Hatchet, &c., and 'tis probable he might change his Cloaths. 
Whoever takes up and secures said Mulatto, so that his 
Master may have him again, shall receive £5. Reward, and 
reasonable charges paid." 

Late in Colonial times,' we find Hagar, a New London 
negress, appearing before the Governor and Council and 
pleading that she and her children were lawfully freed by 
her former master, James Rogers, and so her refusal to yield 
herself as a slave to James Rogers, Jr., his grandson, was 
justified. The decision was that she should give bond to 
prove her freedom at the next County Court and be secured 
from molestation in the meanwhile. 



' Moore, Notes on Slavery, pp. 24-25, quoting J. H. Trumbull's 
" Hist. Notes," etc., No. VI. 
"Am. Hist. Mag., XIH., p. 498. Vide Fowler, " Hist. Status," p. 148. 
s Conn. Col. Rec, XV., p. 582, 



20 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [390 

Social Condition of Slaves in Colonial Times. 

On this topic comparatively little can be found. Each 
large^ village had its negro corner in the Meeting House 
gallery and in the graveyard. In the larger towns, such 
as Norwich, New Haven, Hartford, and New London, there 
were several hundred negroes. They were for the most 
part indulgently treated and admitted, at least in many places, 
into the local churches as fellow-members with the white 
population.^ They must, however, occupy their allotted 
gallery seats, whicli in Torrington were boarded up so that 
the negroes could see no one and be seen by none. If 
they attempted to sit elsewhere, or refused to go to church 
if made to sit there, excommunication was apt to follow.' 

Among early negro slaves recorded in Connecticut are 
some belonging to John Pantry of Hartford in 1653, and one 
Cyrus, belonging to Henry Wolcott, Jr., of Windsor, and 
rated at £30 in his inventor}\* Miss Caulkins states that 
early in the eighteenth century slaves were worth from 60 shill- 
ings to £30, and that later the best were valued as high as £1 00. 
She instances the purchase of a negro boy by Rev. William 
Hart of Saybrook in 1749 for £290, Old Tenor, about equal 
to £60 in coin.^ In 1708, and probably the same state of 
things continued later, we learn the negroes mostly came 
from "neighboring governments, save some times half a 
dozen a year from the West Indies " ; but " none ever im- 
ported by the Royal African Company or separate traders."' 

^ In 1726 Suffield voted Rev. Mr. Devotion £20 towards purchas- 
ing negroes. TrunibuH's " Hartford Comity," 11., p. 40(». 

"E. q. Phebe, colored servant of Joel Thrall, joined ToiTington 
Church, 17.56. Orcutt's " Torrington," p. 211. 

'Jacob Prince, a free negro, was so excommunicated in Goshen. 
Orcutt's " Torrington," p. 218. 

•» 1680, slaves sold at £22. Conn. Col. Rec, III., 298. 

Stiles, "Ancient Windsor," p. 489, notices an early deed of s;ile, 
dated 1694, from a Bostonian to a Windsor man, for a negro. 
Twenty-one negi'oes died in South Windsor from 1736 to 1768, of 
wliich number eleven belonged to the Wolcott family, 

' Hist, of Norwich, p. 828. Vide Fowler, " Hist. Status," p. 148. 

6 Conn. Col. Roc, XV., 557. 



391] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 21 

For the most part, only one or two negroes were owned by 
any person. In some parts of the State, as at Waterbury," 
we find it customary for the clergymen to have two slaves, 
a man and a woman. Occasionally, however, more were 
owned by a wealthy man, as in the case of Capt. John Per- 
kins of Hanover Society,^ Norwich, who lefi fifteen slaves 
by his will in 1761. The slaves were generally kindly treated 
and were docile, though we hear of the death of a man in 
1773 from lockjaw, caused by a bite in the thumb by a young 
slave he was chastising.' The majority, however, could show 
much miore amicable relations. For example, Mingo,* in 
Waterbury, who, about 1730, when a boy, was hired out by 
his master to drive a plow, later to work with a team and, 
1764, at his master's death, was allowed to choose which son 
he would live with. He chose to live with the one who kept 
the old homestead and remained there until he began keep- 
ing a tavern, when he left and went to another son's. He 
had a family, and left considerable property at his death in 
1800. Indeed, as early as 1707, we have evidence of the 
possession of property by a negro, for, in October of that 
year, Lieut. John Hawley, administrator to the estate of 
John Negro, was granted power by the General Court to 
sell iio worth of his land, it appearing from the Fairfield 
County Probate Records that he owed that amount more 
than his moveables would pay.° 

Tow^ards the close of this period, the reasonableness and 
justice of holding slaves began to be questioned and eman- 

' Bronson's " Waterbury," 321. « CaulMns' " Norwich," p. 328. 

^'Caulkins' "Norwich," p. 329. Godfrey Malbone of Brooklyn 
owned 50 or 60 slaves. Fowler, p. 16. 

^The first negro there. Bronson's " Waterbury," p. 321. He also 
refers to Parson Scovil's Dick, brought from Africa when a boy 
and sold several times, with the understanding he could return 
when he pleased. He left some property at his death in 1835, aged 
90. Also to I. Woodruff of Westbury, who owned an Indian woman 
tni her death in 1774. In Wintonbury (Bloomfleld) there were 
probably not over a dozen slaves in all in colonial times. In Bristol 
a few of the farms were cultivated by slave labor, and one family 
owned, three negroes. TrumbuU's " Hartford Coimty," H., pp. 35, 51. 

5 Conn. Col. Rec, VI., 35. 



22 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [392 

cipations, " from a conscientious regard to justice," begin to 
appear. One man in Norwich not only freed three slaves, 
but, " as a compensation for their services, leased them a 
very valuable farm on very moderate rate,"^ That section 
of the State seems to have been considerably stirred on 
this question, and in the Norwich Packet, July 7, 1774, we 
find an anti-slavery appeal of sufficient vigor to warrant quo- 
tation in full: 

" To all you who call yourselves Sons of Liberty in 
America, Greeting: 

" My Friends, We know in some good measure the in- 
estimable value of liberty, But were we once deprived of 
her she would then appear much more valuable than she 
now appears. We also see her, standing as it were, tiptoe 
on the highest bough ready for flight. Why is she depart- 
ing? What is it disturbs her repose? Surely, some foul 
monster of hideous shape and hateful kind, opposite in its 
nature to hers, with all its frightful appearances and proper- 
ties, iron hands and leaden feet, formed to gripe and crush, 
hath intruded itself into her peaceful habitation and ejected 
her. Surely this must be the case, for we know oppositions 
can not dwell together. Is it not time, high time to search 
for this Achan? this disturber of Israel? High time, I say, 
to examine for the cause of those dark and gloomy appear- 
ances tliat cast a shade over our glor}^, and is not tliis it? 
Are we not guilty of the same crime we impute to others? 
Of the same facts, that we say are unjust, cruel, arbitrary, 
despotic, and without law in others? Paul argued in this 
manner — 'Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not 
thyself? Thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost 
thou steal? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through 
breaking "the law dishonorest thou God?' And may we 
not use the same mode of argument and say — We that de- 
clare, and that with much warmth and zeal, it is unjust, cruel, 
barbarous, unconstitutional, and without law to enslave, ifo 
we enslave f Yes, verily we do! A black cloud witnesscth 

^ Caulkins' " Norwich." p. 329. 



393] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 23 

against us and our oivn mouths condemn us! How prepos- 
terous our conduct ! How vain and hypocritical our pre- 
tences! Can we expect to be free, so long as we are deter- 
mined to enslave? (Signed) Honesty."^ 

Before we turn from Colonial times,' the fact is worthy 
of note that, though " redemptioners " were not common 
in Connecticut, white men were often bound out to service 
for a term of years, as in other colonies. We find 
in 1670 a man sold to the Barbadoes for four years as a 
slave, for "notorious stealing," "breaking up and robbing 
of " two mills and living " in a renegade manner in the wil- 
derness." In 1756, a town pauper in Waterbury,' for steal- 
ing, was whipped and bound out to the plaintiff, as a ser- 
vant, till the sum stolen and the costs be paid by his work, 
and the law on the statute-books was that " all single per- 
sons, who lived an idle and riotous life," might be bound out 
to service to pay the costs of prosecution. 

' The emancipation of slaves is not looked on by Dr. Fowler as 
greatly contributing to their welfare. He quotes an essay published 
in 1793 by Noah Webster, Jr. : '' Nor does the restoration to freedom 
correct the depravity of their hearts. Born and bred beneath the 
frowns of power, neglected and despised in youth, they abandon 
themselves to ill company and low vicious pleasures, till their habits 
are formed ; when manumission, instead of destroying their habits 
and repressing their corrupt inclinations, serves to afford the more 
numerous opportunities of indulging both. Thus an act of strict 
justice to the slave, very often, renders him a more worthless mem- 
ber of society. " •' Hist. Status of the Negro," p. 149. 

^ Dr. Fowler; "Hist. Status," pp. 12-13, calls attention to the fact 
that Louis Berbice, from Dutch Guiana, killed by his master, Gys- 
bert Opdyck, commissary at the Dutch fort in Hartford, in Nov., 
1639, was probably the first negro in Conn. He gives a list of the 
early owners of negroes and notes that in 1717, the Lower House 
passed a bill prohibiting negroes purchasing land, or living in fam- 
ilies of their own, without liberty from the town. 

^ Bronson's Waterbury, p. 321. 



PERIOD II.— 1 774- 1 869. 
Slaves in the Revolution.' 

The subject of using negroes in the army first came be- 
fore the General Assembly in May, 1777, when a committee 
was appointed " to take' into consideration the state and 
condition of the negro and mulatto slaves in this State, and 
what may be done for their emancipation." I would hazard 
a guess that this committee was appointed in consequence 
of a resolution of the town of Enfield, on March 31, 1777, 
appointing a committee of three to prefer a memorial to 
the Assembly, to "pray' that the Negroes in this State be 
released from tlieir Slavery and Bondage." The Assembly's 
committee, of which Hon. Matthew Griswold was chairman, 
reported a recommendation that the effective negro and 
mulatto slaves be allowed to enlist with the Continental bat- 

* Connecticut Committee of Safety. 

Monday, September 4, 1775. 

At a meeting of the committee On information, by letter, from 
Major Latimer, " tbat one of the Vessels lately taken by Captain 
Wallace, of the Rose, man-of-war, &c.. at Stoningtun, was by stress 
of weather drove back to New-London, with one white man, a petty 
officer, and three negroes on board, and were in his custody, and 
a.sking directions how to dispose of them, &c. And by other infor- 
mation it appears that two of the negroes belong to Deputy Gov- 
ernour Cooke, of Bhode-Mand. and were lately seized and robbed 
from him, with and on board a vessel, by said Wallace, and tliat the 
other belonged to one Captain Collins. And, on consideration, 

Voted and Ordered, That the Major give infomiation to the owner 
of the vessel, and, on his request, deUver her up to him, and send 
the white man to the jail at Windham, and the three negroes to the 
care of. and to be employed for the present by. Captain Niles, at Nor- 
unch, who is fixing out a small Armed Vessel, &c. . until the Gov- 
emour shall advise Deputy Govemour Conke of the matter, that 
they may, on proper notice, be returned to their owners."— Am. 
Arch., IV., III.. ]). 672. 

■•' Livermore, " Historical Research," p. 11.3. 

s Trumbull's "Hartford County," II., p. 151. 



395] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 25 

talions now raising in this State, under the following regu- 
lations and restrictions : viz., that all such negro and mulatto 
slaves as can procure, either by bounty, hire, or in any other 
way, such a sum to be paid to their masters, as such negro 
and mulatto shall be judged to be reasonably worth by the 
selectman of the to^vn where such negro or mulatto be- 
longs, shall be allowed to enlist into either of said battalions, 
and shall thereupon be, de facto, free and emancipated ; and 
that the master of such negro or mulatto shall be exempted 
from the support and maintenance of such negro or mulatto, 
in case " he " shall hereafter become unable to support and 
maintain himself." Further, if a slave desire to enlist for 
the war, he may be appraised by the selectmen and his mas- 
ter may receive the bounty and half the slave's annual wages 
until the appraised sum be equaled. The Upper House 
rejected this report. 

At that session, however, an act was passed that any two 
men, "who should procure an able bodied soldier," should 
be exempted from the draft, during the continuance of the 
substitute's enlistment. " Of recruits," writes Dr. J. H. 
Trumbull, "and draughted men thus furnished, neither the 
selectmen nor commanding officers questioned the color, 
or the civil status; white and black, bond and free, if able 
bodied, went on the roll together, accepted as the represen- 
tatives or substitutes of their employers." 

In October, 1777,' the Assembly passed an act similar to 
the one proposed in May. It authorized the selectmen, on 
application from a master of a slave, to inquire "into the 
age, abilities, circumstances, and character" of the slave, 
and, being satisfied " that it was likely to be consistent with 
his real advantage, and that it was probable that he would 
be able to support himself, and is of good and peaceable 
life and conversation," they could free the master from all 
liability for support of his freedman. This offered an addi- 
tional inducement to masters to free slaves to make up the 

» Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. I., Sec. 12. Vide Stiles' "Anc. 
Windsor," I., p. 491. 



26 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [396 

town's quota of men, and Dr. Trumbull says " some hun- 
dreds of black slaves and free men enlisted." The rolls of 
the companies show no distinction of color. The surnames 
Liberty, Freeman, Freedom are frequently found.^ In Weth- 
ersfield, on the blank leaves of the book of town votes, 
among records of emancipation from motives of humanity, 
or for money, we find record of John Wright and Luke 
Fortune freeing their slave Abner Andrew, on May 20, 1777, 
to be their substitute in the army. Other certificates free 
slaves on condition of " enlisting in the Continental Army 
in Col. Wallis' Regiment" and "and after the customary 
three years service," and, as late as 1780, Caesar was manu- 
mitted by David Griswold there, on " condition of enlistment 
and faithfully serving out the time of enlistment," which was 
three years.^ 

David Humphreys commanded a company entirely com- 
posed of negroes, their roster shov^ing fifty-six names,^ first 
of which is Jack Arabas, of whom we shall hear again. It 
was said Humphreys nobly volunteered to command the 
company, when others refused, and continued its captain 
until peace was declared. The company was in Meigs' 
(later Butler's) regiment of the Connecticut Line. 

At Fort Griswold, when Col. Ledyard was murdered, a 
negro soldier named Lambert avenged his death by thrust- 
ing a bayonet through the British officer who slew his 
superior, and then fell a mart}T, pierced by thirty-three bay- 
onet wounds.* 

" As to the efficiency of the senace they rendered," says 
Dr. J. H. Trumbull," " I can say nothing from the records, 



^ Livermore's " Historical Research," p. 115. 

2Am. Hist. 5ilag., XXI., 422. Trumbull's " Hartford County," II., , 
475. 

^ Williams' " Hist, of Negi'o Race in America," I., 361. 

■* Wilson, " Rise and Fall of tlie Slave Power," I., p. 19. 
L-ivermoro's " Historical Research," p. 115. Lib Quy, native 
African, was a ti'usty Continental soldier from Norwich in 1780 
and '81 (Caiilkins' " Noi-wich," p. 331). Oliver Mitchell, a nejn'o 
Revolutionary soldier, died of a fit in his boat, INIarch, 1840. in 
which he had been to Hartford to draw liis pension (Stiles' "Ancient 
Windsor," I., p. 489). 



397] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 27 

save what is to be gleaned from scattered files. ... So far 
as my acquaintance extends, almost every family has its 
traditions of the good and faithful service of a black servant 
or slave, who was killed in battle or served through the war 
and came home to tell stories of hard fighting and draw his 
pension. In my own town — not a large one — I remember 
five such pensioners, three of whom I believe had been slaves, 
and were in fact slaves to the day of their death; for (and 
this explains the uniform action of the General Assembly 
on petitions for emancipation) neither the towns nor the 
State were inclined to exonerate the master, at a time when 
slavery was becoming unprofitable, from the obligation to 
provide for the old age of his slave." 

An interesting Revolutionary case is that of the slaves of 
Col. William Browne of Salem, Mass., a Tory, whose large 
farm in Lyme was confiscated. It was leased for a term 
of years with nine slaves, who petitioned for liberty in 1779, 
through Benjamin Huntington, administrator on confiscated 
estates. The lessee offered to consent to their freedom 
without requiring a diminution in the rent. Mr. Huntington 
drew up their petition to the Assembly," stating that they, 
" all friends to America, but slaves lately belonging to Col. 
Wm. Browne," who " fled from his native country to his 
master, King George, where he now lives like a poor slave," 
"though they have flat noses, crooked shins, and other 
queemess of make, peculiar to Africans, are }'et of the human 
race, free-born in our country, taken from thence by man- 
stealers, and sold in this country, as cattle in the market, 
without the least act of our own to forfeit liberty; but we 
hope our good mistress, ^/le free State of Connecticut, en- 
gaged in a war with tyranny, will not sell honest Whigs 
and friends of the freedom and independence of America, 
as we are, to raise cash to support the war: because the 
Whigs ought to be free and the Tories should be sold." 
They ofTer, if set free, to get security to indemnify the State 

' Great Prince, Little Prince, Luke, Caesar, Prue and her three 
children. LiveiTQore, " Historical Research," p. 116. 



28 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [398 

ill case of their coming to want ; but, though the Lower 
House was favorable, the Upper one refused to grant the 
petition. 

Opinions of the Forefathers on Slavery. 

One of the earhest in Connecticut to come out boldly 
against slavery was Rev. Levi Hart of Preston, who, on 
Sept. 20, 1774, at Farmington, preached a sermon at the 
meeting of " the Corporation of Freemen," in which he 
condemned the slave trade and severely criticized slave- 
holding.^ 

Dr. William Gordon of Roxbury, Mass., though living 
out of Connecticut, became interested in the abolition of 
slavery there and sent a plan for its gradual extermination 
to the "Independent Chronicle" of Nov. 14, 1776, which is 
very severe on slaveholders and paints the deathbed of one 
of them." 

In the Constitutional Convention' of 1787 we have full 
expression of the views of Roger Sherman and Oliver Ells- 
worth, two of Connecticut's three delegates. The former 
said " that the abolition of slavery seemed to be going on 
in the United States and that the good sense of the several 
States would probably by degrees complete it."* He re- 
garded the slave trade as iniquitous; but, the point of rep- 
resentation having been settled after much difficulty and 
deliberation,' he did not think himself bound to make oppo- 
sition." He objected, however, to the tax on imported slaves, 
as implying that slaves were property, and that the tax im- 
posed was too small to prevent importation." He thought 
that, " as the States were now possessed of the right to im- 
port slaves, as the public good did not require it to be taken 

» Trumbull's " Memorial Histoiy of Hartford Co.," IT., p. 102. 

'Moore, "Notes on Slaveiy in Mass.," p. 177. 

3 Connecticut voted for .Jefferson's ordinance of 1784. 

•• Livenuore, " Historic Research," p. 51. 

'IMadison Tapers, V., 391 (Elliot). 

«Wilson, "Rise and Fall," p. 51. 



399] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 29 

from them, and as it was expedient to have as few objections 
as possible to the proposed scheme of government, it would 
be best to leave the matter as we tind it.'" He said, when 
Baldwin of Georgia, a man of Connecticut birth, stated his 
State would not confederate unless allowed to import, that 
it was better to let the Southern States import slaves' than 
to lose those States, if they made that a si/ie cpia non. He 
thought it would be the duty of the General Government' 
to exercise the power of prohibiting importation, if it were 
given it. He preferred not to use the word slaves in the 
Constitution, and saw no"" more propriety in the public z€\z- 
ing and surrendering a slave than a horse. Ellsworth said, 
" Let every State import what it pleases. The morality or 
wisdom of slavery are considerations belonging to the States. 
What enriches a part enriches the whole, and the States are 
the best judges of their particular interests. The old Con- 
federation had not meddled with this point, and he did not 
see any greater necessity for bringing it into the policy of the 
new one." He had^ " never owned a slave and could not 
judge of the effects of slavery on character." He said, how- 
ever, that, if it was " to be considered in a moral light, we 
ought to go further and free those already in the country. 
As slaves also multiply so fast in Virginia and Maryland, it is 
cheaper to raise than import them, whilst in the sickly rice 
swamps, foreign supplies are necessary. If we go no fur- 
ther than is urged, we shall be unjust towards South Caro- 
lina and Georgia. Let us not intermeddle. As population 
increases, poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves 
useless. Provision is already made in Connecticut for abol- 
ishing it, and the abolition has already taken place in Massa- 
chusetts. As to the dangers of insurrections from foreign 
influence, that will become a motive to kind treatment of 

the slaves."^ 

— . . 

^ Ldvermore, p. 56. - Liver more, p. GO. 

^ Elliot, v., pp. 457 461 and 471. Connecticut voted to extend 
the open period from 1800 to 1808. 

•! Livermore, p. 57. 

f'ln 1787, Connecticut voted in the Constitutional Convention for 
the three-fifths compromise. 



30 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [400 

Mistaken in many respects as these men were, tliey un- 
doubtedly represented the current opinion of their time. 

We find a contrar}^ opinion in the resolves of the Danbur}-- 
Town Meeting on December 12, 1774, that, " It is with singu- 
lar pleasure, we notice the second article of the Association, 
in which it is agreed to import no more Negro slaves, as we 
cannot but think it a palpable absurdity, so loudly to com- 
plain of attempts to enslave us, while we are actually enslaving 
others, and that we have great reason to apprehend the en- 
slaving the Africans is one of the crying sins of our land, for 
which Heaven is now chastising us. We notice also with 
pleasure the late Act of our General Assembly, imposing a 
fine of i 1 00 on any one, who shall import a Negro Slave into 
this Colony. We could also wish that something further 
might be done for the relief of such, as are now in a state of 
slaver}' in the Colony,' and such as may hereafter be born of 
parents in that unhappy condition." 

State Legislation on Slavery. 

The growth of free ideas went on apace, after tiie State 
became independent. In 1780, a bill for gradual emanci- 
pation passed the Upper House, was continued until the 
next session and then, apparently, set aside. It provided 
that no Indian or colored child, then living and under seven 
years of age, nor any bom afterwards, should be held as a 
slave beyond the age of twenty-eight.^ In 1784, however, 
the measure was passed and emancipation was begun. The 
Legislature enacted that, "Whereas sound public policy re- 
quires tliat the abolition of slaver}^ should be effected, as 
soon as may be consistent with the rights of individuals 
and the public safety and welfare," no negro or mulatto, 
bom after March i, 1784, should be held as a slave after 
reaching the age of twenty-five." This regard for the exist- 

^ Am. Arch., IV., I., pp. 1038. 

-Jameson, "Essays in Const. Ilist.," p. 296 (Brackett, " Status of 
the Slave, 1775-1789 "). 

3 Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. I., Sec. 13. Fowler, "Hist. 
Status," p. 85, shows that this really made slaves in the same con- 



401] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 31 

ing rights of property was shown by the gradual aboHtion 
of slavery in Connecticut/ the holding of slaves not being 
absolutely forbidden until 1848, when any one to be a slave 
must have been sixty-four years old. 

In October, 1788, a bill was passed, forbidding any inhabi- 
tant of Connecticut to receive on his vessel " any inhabitants 
of Africa as slaves," under penalty of $1,667 ^or the use of the 
vessel and $167 additional for each slave carried.' Half of 
this fine was to go to the plaintiff and half to the State ; but, 
by the act of October, 1798,' prosecutions must begin in three 
years. Furthermore, insurance on ships used in the slave 
trade, or on slaves carried, is to be void. We have seen the 
importation of slaves forbidden in this act: the exportation 
" of any free negro, Indian, or mulatto, or person entitled to 
freedom at twenty-five," inhabitants of Connecticut, was to be 
punished by a fine of $334 levied on any who should, as prin- 
cipal or accessory, '' kidnap, decoy, or forcibly carry away " 
such persons from the State. "Any friend of the inhabitant " 
carried off may prosecute and receive " fit damages," and must 
give bond to use such rightly for " the injured inhabitant,"* 
or family. This prohibition was not to prevent persons remov- 
ing from the State from taking their slaves with them, nor 
to prevent persons living in Connecticut from sending their 
slaves out of the State, on ordinary and necessary business. 
This sale of slaves out of the State was soon stopped, for, 
in May, 1792, the law was so changed tliat the taking a slave 
from the State, or assistance therein, was punishable with a 

dition as apprentices, and claims the law was passed partly through 
economical reasons, as there were more laborers than employment. 

* In October, 1788, owners must lile certificate of bu-th of each 
slave within six months thereof, or pay $7 for each month's delay, 
half to complainant and half to poor of town. October, 1789, the 
latter half was to go to the State. Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. 
v., Sec. 5, and Ch. VI. 

« Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. V., Sec. 1. Penalty changed to 
$170 and $1700 by Revision of 1821, Title 93, Sec. 7. Penalty was 
originally £1000. Root's Reports, I., xxxi. 

3 Revision of 1808, Title CI., Ch. in. 

^Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. V., Sees. 3-4. Penalty changed 
to $350 m Revision of 1821, Sec. 6. 



32 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [402 

like fine of $334, half of which should go to tlie plaintiff and 
half to the State. Notes, bonds, or mortgages given in 
payment for slaves thus sold out of the State were to be 
void. The same exemptions as to persons removing from 
the State or sending their slaves out temporarily, were made 
as in the former law.^ 

At the same session of the Assembly, the age of the slave 
at manumission was limited to the period between twenty- 
five and forty-five years, and the certificate given at eman- 
cipation by the selectmen was ordered to be recorded in the 
Town Records.^ This somewhat reactionary act, modifying 
the law of 1702, designed to regulate the giving of freedom, 
was followed in five years by one still further limiting the 
bounds of slavery; for in May, 1797, it was enacted that no 
negro or mulatto bom after August, 1797, should be a slave, 
after reaching the age of twenty-one.^ 

Here the laws with regard to slavery remained without 
essential change for many years. Not until 1833 do we find 
another important act passed in regard to slavery, and then, 
under the influence of the outcry against Miss Prudence 
Crandall, the Legislature put on the statute-book the most 
shameful law we meet in our study .^ It stated that, " whereas 
attempts have been made to establish literary institutions in 
this State, for the instruction of colored persons belonging 
to other States and countries, which would tend to the great 
increase of the colored population of the State and thereby 
to the injury of the people," any person establishing such a 
school without the consent in writing of the selectmen and 
civil authority of the town, should pay a fine of $100 to 
the State Treasurer for the first offense and double for each 

1 Revision of 1808, Title CL., Ch. VI., Sees. 1, 2, 8. 

5 Revision of 180S, Title CL., Ch. n. Free negroes could vote 
until the Constitution of 1818 restiicted the suffrage t-o white males. 

» Revision of 1808. Title CL., Ch. III. 

•■May 24, 1833. Act of 1838, Ch. Sec. 1. Sec. 2 provided that 
a colored person not an inhabitant of Connecticut, residing in a 
town for education, might be removed as any other alien. S(>c. 3 
provided tliat the evidence of such colored person is both admissi- 
ble and compulsory against the teacher. 



403] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 33 

succeeding one, the fines increasing in geometrical pro- 
gression. The law was not destined to be a blot upon any of 
the States' codes, but was repealed in 1838 by the Legislature, 
under the leadership of Francis Gillette,^ a young represen- 
tative from Hartford, who was afterwards United States 
Senator. That same Legislature passed resolutions against 
the annexation of Texas, the slave trade in the District of 
Columbia, and in favor of the right of petition. Nay more, 
that same year was passed the "Act for the Fulfilment of 
the Obligations of this State imposed by the Constitution 
of the United States in regard to persons held to service or 
labor in one State and escaping into another, and to secure 
the right of trial by juiy in the cases herein mentioned."' 
Prof. W. C. Fowler called this law a " nullification "' of the 
United States Act of 1793, which provided that the owner 
or his attorney could take the fugitive slave before any 
magistrate of the county, city, or town wherein tlie arrest 
might be made, and, on proof by oral testimony or affidavit, 
taken before and certified to by a magistrate of any State 
or Territory, the magistrate must give a certificate, which 
should be sufficient warrant for removing the slave from the 
State. 

Let us see now how Connecticut fulfilled her obligations, 
in this early personal liberty law. Instead of following the 
provisions of the United States law, she enacted that the 
captured fugitive should be brought before the county or 
city court on a writ of liabeas corpus^ and no magistrate not 
having the power to issue that writ should give the claimant 
any warrant or certificate, under penalty of $500. When 
he arrived at court, the claimant must pay all fees in advance 
and must, "by affidavit, set forth minutely" the ground of 



^ Wilson, " Else and Fall of the Slave Power," I., 372. The Legis- 
lature, however, by a vote of 165 to 33, rejected a constitutional 
amendment allowing negroes the suffrage. Niles' Reg., Vol. 54, p. 
193. In 1842 the State agam protested against the annexation of 
Texas. Niles' Reg., Vol. 62, p. 140. 

•^ Revision of 1838, Title 97, Ch. II. 

^ Local Law in Mass. and Conn., p. 98. 



34 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [404 

his claim to the slave's services, the time of the slave's es- 
cape, and the place where the slave then was, or was be- 
lieved to be. The judge was next to allow necessary time 
for further proof and, meantime, commit the fugitive to the 
custody of the sheriff. The questions of fact were to be tried 
by a jury, on which no one was to sit "who believes there 
is not, constitutionally or legally, a slave in the land," in 
this showing the early distrust of the Abolitionists. If the 
claimant does not prove the claim, he is liable to the pay- 
ment of costs and damages; if he does prove it, he may 
take the slave from the State, but must, "without unneces- 
sary delay," take him by the " direct route " to his home. 
In the same act, the law against transporting slaves from 
the State, save as above, is made universal and the penalty 
for its violation fixed at $500, to go to any one prosecuting. 
Any fugitive arrested, contrary to the act, may have a writ 
of habeas corpus sued out by his next friend ; and, as an after- 
thought, at the very end, we read that nothing in this act 
shall extend to the United States Courts. 

As the feeling grew more bitter, even this law was felt to 
be too much of a yielding in principle and, in 1844,' the 
Legislature decided that no Judge, Justice of tlie Peace, or 
other officer should issue a warrant " for the arrest or de- 
tention of any person escaping into this State, claimed to 
be fugitive from labor or service as a slave," or grant a 
certificate to the claimant. Such papers, if issued, are to be 
void, but, as before, the people soothed their consciences 
with the belief they were fulfilling their obligations, by say- 
ing " nothing herein shall interfere with United States offi- 
cers."" 
. In 1847,^ ^y ^ great majority, the State rejected a proposal 

^ Compilation of 1854, Title 51, Sec. 5. The preamble stated that 
" it has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States 
since " 1S3S " that both the duty and the poAver of legislation on 
that svibject pertains exclusively to the National government." 

-'In 1845 the Legislatui-e of Connecticut protested against the 
admission of Texas as a Slave State. Niles' Reg., Vol. G9, p. 24G. 

^ The vote was, for. 5.353; against, 19.148. Over half the legal 
voters did not vote. Niles' Reg., Vol. 73, Nov. 6, 1847. Fowler, p. 152. 



J 



405] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 35 

to allow colored men the ballot, but the next year' it decreed, 
what was already almost accomplished by tlie action of 
former laws, " that no person shall hereafter be held in 
slavery in this State," that emancipated slaves must be sup- 
ported by their masters/ and that no slave shall be brought 
into Connecticut. Thus Connecticut became in law a Free 
State, as she long had been in fact. When the fugitive slave 
law of 1850 was passed, the rising tide of indignation swept 
over Connecticut. Here and there some resisted the tor- 
rent and organized Union Saving Meetings, like the one 
the famous Rev. N. W. Taylor addressed at New Haven, 
deprecating agitation, counseling obedience, declaring tliat 
he had not been able to discover that the article in the Con- 
stitution for the rendition of fugitives was " contrary to the 
law of nature, to the law of nations, or the law of God," and 
claiming that it was " lawful to deliver up fugitives for the 
high, the great, the momentous interests of the Southern 
States."^ But the majority sympathized rather with Gov. H. 
B. Harrison, when he introduced his " personal liberty bill " 
in the Senate of 1854,' and " avowed his belief that it would 
render the fugitive slave law inoperative in Connecticut." 
The Hon. Henry C. Deming, in opposing the bill, said, 
though it was " nicely drawn," he thought it conflicted in 
spirit with the United States Constitution, as it undoubtedly 
did, and that "it was not in equity and justice deserved by 
our Southern brethren, if they behave pretty well." The 
advocates of the bill used no such mild terms. The Hon. 
John Boyd, late Secretary of State, said " desperate diseases 
require desperate remedies." He had " some faith in the 
homoeopathic remedy that like requires like," and, as he be- 
lieved " the exigencies of the time " demanded it, he thanked 
]\Ir. Harrison for introducing the bill. He added, " if Shy- 

1 Compilation of 1854, Title 51, Sees. 1 and 2. Vide Conn. Repts., 
II., 355. 

- Remember all such must have been over sixty -four years of age. 

^Wilson, " Rise and Fall of the Slave Power," II., 318. 

^Fowler, " Local Law in Mass. and Conn.," pp. 98-99. It was 
introduced about Jime 25. 



36 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [40G 

lock claims his pound of flesh, he must be careful not to 
take any of the blood." Judge Sanford saw in the bill " new 
and important principles, which he believed were entirely 
constitutional and would be so decided by the Supreme 
Court." Ex-Gov. Wm. S. Miner could not find a " single 
line, sentence, or word " unconstitutional in the bill. Judge 
Sanford spoke again and again, using such language as this : 
that he thought the South had driven this matter so fast that 
it had " driven us back to our reserved rights, if we had any." 
He would occupy the last inch the Constitution left them, 
come square up to the line, but not one step over. He 
would oppose the fugitive slave law by any means in his 
power within the limits of the Constitution. He said, with 
great clearness, dignity, and force, that the bill was consti- 
tutional, that the emergencies of the times demanded such 
a law; he portrayed the odious features of the fugitive slave 
law and said the slave-catcher was the most despicable of 
men. At the same time a bill was introduced, which, how- 
ever, did not pass, prohibiting the use of any court-house, 
jail, or other public building for the trial or confinement 
of fugitive slaves. To this, Mr. Boyd proposed an amend- 
ment that a building used for such a purpose should " be 
rased to the foundation and remain a perpetual ruin." Even 
the excited Senate had good sense enough to vote this frantic 
proposition down. 

The law as passed, entitled " An Act for the Defense of 
Liberty in this State," provided that " any person, who shall 
falsely and maliciously pretend that any free person is a 
slave, intending to remove him from Connecticut, shall pay 
a fine of $5000 and be imprisoned five years in the State 
Prison." In trials, two credible persons, or equivalent evi- 
dence, were required to prove the defendant a slave, and 
depositions were not to be received as evidence. Witnesses 
falsely representing free persons as slaves are to receive the 
punishment mentioned above, and, with the intention to sat- 
isfy their consciences that they were not violating United 
States law, the legislators added that any person hindering 



407] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 37 

an officer from the arrest of a fugitive, or aiding an accused 
person to escape, was to be imprisoned one year in State's 
prison. The last section of the bill contained an interesting 
reminder of colonial customs, in providing that the act 
should not cover the case of apprentices. 

Though slavery is still found as a title in the Revision^ of 
1866, the last act on the subject was passed in 1857, and 
with that the statutory history of slavery in Connecticut may 
well be ended. At that time it was enacted that " any person 
held to service as a slave in any other State or country," and 
not being a fugitive from another of the United States, " com- 
ing into this State, or being therein, shall forthwith become 
and be free." 

Cases Adjudicated in the Higher Courts with 
Reference to Slavery. 

The question as to the manumission of slaves by service 
in the Continental Army with the master's consent, was de- 
cided in the case of Jack Arabas versus Ivers^ Ivers, the 
master, permitted Arabas to enlist in the army. He served 
through the war and was discharged at its end, when Ivers 
again claimed him. He fled to the eastward, was overtaken 
and brought back to New Haven, where he was put in the 
jail for safekeeping. He sued out a "habeas corpus" and 
the court granted it, " upon the ground that he was a free 
man, absolutely manumitted from his master by enlisting 
and serving in the army." It was a fine idea, that he who 
helped to free his country could not be a slave. 

The only other case in the Connecticut reports as to manu- 
mission is Geer versus Huntington^" where the plaintiff 
claimed a negro as his slave by a bill of sale from his former 
mistress, while the defendant claimed that the mistress had 
told him he should be servant to no one but her and should 
be free at the age of twenty-five. As he had passed that 

^ Title LVIIL, Sees. 1-6. 'Root's Reports, I., p. 92, 1784. 
3 Root's Reports, II., 364. 



38 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [408 

age before he left her service, the court held him to have been 
freed, by a liberal interpretation of her pr ^mise. 

The only case I have found tried in Connecticut in regard 
to the Slave Trade, save the famous Amistad case, to be 
treated later, is that of the United States versus Jo/m Smith.' 
It was an action to recover double the value of Smith's 
interest in over one hundred negro slaves, transported 
in the brig Heroine, of which he was sole owner and 
master, from Africa to Havana, and there sold, contrary to 
the Act of Congress of May lo, iSoo. The Heroine was 
in Africa between Dec. i, 1805 and April i, 1806, and, arriv- 
ing at Havana before June i, Smith sold the slaves before 
the end of that month for not less than $10,000, so action 
was brought for $20,000. One of the crew was offered 
as a witness by the government; but Smith's attorney ob- 
jected to this testimony on the ground that it would incrimi- 
nate the man and subject him to a fine of not over $2000 and 
two years imprisonment, according to the above-mentioned 
Act of Congress. The government said they had entered a 
7tolle prosequi in his case and it was too late to institute 
another proceeding against him. The defense pleaded that 
the witness had fled from justice and that in such case the 
statute of limitations would not hold. Further, he might be 
excused from testifying, as he was unwilling; but the judge 
ruled that a witness could not plead his wrong-doing as a 
defense and must testify. However, there was a verdict for 
the defendant, as the judge charged the jury that the offense 
was completed when the vessel arrived at Havana, not when 
die slaves were sold, and the prosecution, though begun 
within the prescribed period, two years, of the latter date, 
was not within two years of the former. 

The most frequent cause of negroes appearing in cases 
before the Supreme Court was the law of settlement. When 
negroes became infirm and were penniless, it was an import- 
ant question who should support them, and from this several 

^ Day's Reports, IV., p. 121. IT. S. Circuit Court, Hartford, Sept., 
1809. Fowler's "Hist. Status." pp. 16-18. has interesting facts on 
slave trade in Conn. 



409] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 39 

cases arose. The first of these/ Wilson ct al. vs. Hinkley et 
al., in the Tolland County Court, was a case of an appeal from 
a judgment of a Justice of the Peace. In this court, Hinkley 
and others, selectmen of the town of Tolland, sued the 
selectmen of the town of Coventry for support of Amy 
Caesar and her children. This Amy, daughter of an Indian 
woman, was bom in Tolland, and lived with a citizen of that 
town as servant till eighteen years of age. Then she was set 
at liberty and, after four years more in Tolland, married Tim- 
othy Caesar, also a child of an Indian woman and slave to a 
citizen of Mansfield, where they lived nine months. Thence 
they removed to Coventry, Timothy being granted pemiission 
to do so by his master. There they lived eighteen months, 
since which time Amy and her children had apparently lived 
in Tolland. Tolland's claim for reimbursement was resisted 
by Coventry, which said the former masters of Amy and 
Timothy should support them. The court decided that 
Timothy, " being born of a free woman, a native of the land, 
was not a slave," applying apparently the old civil law 
maxim. " Nor " was he " a servant bound for time, nor an 
apprentice under age, nor under disability to gain settlement 
by commorancy"; therefore, by residence in Coventry over a 
year he had gained settlement for himself and wife, and, as 
she was never a " slave or servant bought for time," Coventry 
must pay the expense of her support. 

The next case was also one in which the same town of 
Tolland was interested; Ebenezer Kingsbury vs. Tolland? 
Joseph Kingsbury, of Norwich, bought two native Africans, 
Cufif and Phyllis, as " servants for life," and gave them to his 
wife. She died, December, 1773, freeing them. In 1776, 
with the consent of Ebenezer Kingsbury, their former m.is- 
tress's sole executor, they removed to Tolland and, after liv- 
ing there nine years, came to want and were supported by the 
town. The town brought suit against Kingsbury and won 
in the County Court; but in the Court of Appeals lost its 
case, on the technicality that he was sued personally and not 

^ Kirby Keports, 202. ^ Root's Reports, February, 1796. 



40 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [410 

as executor. The court, however, in an obiter dictum, inti- 
mated the personal representatives and next of kin were liable, 
if sued as such, for the support of freed slaves, if there were 
sufficient assets. 

A third case was Bolton vs. Haddani^ by which was deter- 
mined that a slave was domiciled with his master and, if manu- 
mitted in any way, continued an inhabitant of the same town 
as before, unless he became legally settled elsewhere. 

Twenty years now pass before we find another such case; 
then, November, 1817, was decided the case of Windsor vs. 
Hartford? This rather important case regarded the resi- 
dence of a negress, Fanny Libbet, and her two illegitimate 
children, Fanny, herself illegitimate, was born in Hartford 
in 1785 and, at the age of three, was given by her master to 
Ills son in Wethersfield. There she lived until twenty-five 
years of age, when her term of service by law expired. Her 
mother had been sold to a citizen of Windsor in 1795 and 
was emancipated by him in 1801. Fanny w^ent to her mother 
as soon as she could, , and there her two children were born. 
Windsor supported them for a while and then sued Hartford, 
on the ground that Fanny, born after March i, 1784, was 
never a slave and so took her settlement from her birthplace, 
Hartford. The court so decided, stating that " she is to be 
considered as a free person and never w^as a slave," an im- 
portant interpretation of the act of 1784. Her residence in 
Wethersfield was that of an apprentice, and she had never 
gained settlement in Windsor. As she never had been a 
slave, her former master was not liable to her support. 

Soon after was tried the case of the Town of Cohinibia vs. 
Williams et alium. A citizen of Groton had left a slave, 
Adam, who had, after his master's decease, removed to 
Columbia and there became a town charge. The town sued 
the heirs of Williams, and they claimed that the suit was 
improperly brought, that Groton ought have been sued, as 
Adam had a settlement with his master there, which town 



^ Hoot's Reports, II., p. 517. Pebniary, 1797. Tolland County. 

« Conn. Reports, II., p. 355. 

•'Conn. Reports, III., 467, October 28, 1820. 



411] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 41 

could then have recovered from them. As it was admitted 
that Adam had never been manumitted, the court sustained 
the claims of the defendants, and the town, on this point, 
lost its case and a new trial was ordered, which seems never 
to have come off. 

Flora,^ slave of Elisha Pitkin, gave rise to two cases. Pit- 
kin et al. vs. Pitkin et al., the first, was brought by the exec- 
utors of Elisha Pitkin against certain of his heirs. He exe- 
cuted a deed of gift of all his real estate to the plaintiffs and 
defendants in 1816, but kept it in his possession until his 
death, three years later. When he died, he bequeathed his' 
remaining property by testament to the plaintiffs and certain 
of the defendants, to be equally divided among them, they 
being enjoined to take care of Flora and bear the expense 
equally, or to have the executors reserve sufficient estate for 
her support. The executors claimed they paid " large sums " 
for her support, supposing there was sufficient estate; but, at 
final settlement, found not enough was left outside of the real 
estate conveyed by deed. This they ask the court to order 
sold, sufficiently to provide for Flora's support. The defend- 
ants demurred, and their demurrer being sustained, the plain- 
tiffs carry the case to the higher court. The plaintiffs con- 
tended that, " where there is service for life there must be 
support for life," and, therefore, the support of the slave was 
a charge upon the estate, that Mr. Pitkin's intention was to 
have her supported, that it was the duty of the executors to 
support her, and they were consequently not volunteers and 
had a superior equit)- to that of the defendants, and that the 
court should decide the case according to its equities. The 
defendants said Mr. Pitkin did not charge Flora's support on 
the real estate, that the executors were volunteers, having 
nothing to do with the real estate, and that, if the land should 
be liable, it should be so decided in a probate, not in a chan- 
cery court. The court decided in favor of the defendants, 

'Conn. Reports, VII., p. 315, June, 1829, and VIII., 392, Jime, 
1831. 
* Probably not all, tbough of this I am not absolutely sui*e. 



42 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [412 

on this last contention, and on the ground that it could not 
foresee what sums mig-h'- be needed for her support, and 
hence could not determine on the quantity of land to be sold. 
Having lost their case, the executors seem to have given 
up trying to support Flora and to have endeavored to throw 
the expense on the town of East Hartford, which sued them in 
1 83 1, alleging that it had supported Flora three years. The 
defendants demurred that the selectmen were not obliged to 
support her, and as volunteers the}' cannot recover, for " the 
duty of support rests on the master alone," and he is only 
liable to the town for the support of emancipated slaves. 
" Slavery is not founded in reason and justice, like the rela- 
tions of husband and wife." Thirdly, as the supplies were 
not furnished in Elisha Pitkin's lifetime, the defendants 
should be sued as owners, not executors. The prosecution, 
on the other hand, asserted that the relation of master and 
slave is recognized by statute law; during the continuance of 
this relation the master is liable for support of slave, which 
slave if unemancipated remains part of the estate; that a needy 
slave must be relieved by the town in which is his settlement, 
for which relief recovery is to be had at law. Judge Daggett, 
in his majority opinion, confined himself to the obligation of 
the selectmen for her support. He said the only cases where 
the town would have to support a slave were when both 
master and slave were paupers, or a slave emancipated in 
accordance with the act of 1792 should become such. In this 
suit neither was the fact, and the town was a volunteer and 
could no more recover than if it had supported a vnie or child 
of a man of means. Chief Justice Hosmer agreed with this 
reasoning, from which Judge Peters dissented, though he 
agreed with the decision. He said, " The relation of master 
and servant, or qualified slaver\', has existed in Connecticut 
from time immemorial and has been tolerated (not sanc- 
tioned) by the legislature. But absolute slavery', where the 
master has unlimited power over the life of the slave, has 
never been permitted in this State." He continued. Flora 
at Mr. Pitkin's death, not being specially devised, vested as a 



413] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 43 

chattel in the executors. "They alone could sell her; they 
became her masters and she their slave, and they alone were 
to maintain her." He thought, however, she ought to be 
maintained by the town as a vagrant, when the town could 
recover by implied promise; basing his decision for the 
defendants, on the technicality that, " when an executor cov- 
enants or promises, he binds himself personally and not the 
heirs or estate of the testator, therefore they should not have 
been sued as executors, but as persons." 

Judge Williams filed a dissenting opinion, in which Judge 
Bissell concurred. He placed the chief importance on the 
implied promise, stating, " that slavery has existed in this 
State cannot be denied, and a few solitary cases still exist, to 
attest to the melancholy truth . . . The man who had a right 
to all the time and services and even offspring of his un- 
happy slave, must, of course, be bound to maintain him." 
Executors are liable for debts arising after death of the tes- 
tator, " where the demand arises from an obligation existing 
upon the testator in his life." Such an obligation was the 
support of this slave, which, as personal property, vested in 
the executors. He thought that it was not necessary to sue 
them personally, that the onus probmidi rested on them, that 
there were no assets. The town was not a volunteer, for 
" the woman must be relieved by the town where she was, or 
starve." He quoted a statute providing that "all poor and 
impotent persons," without estate or relatives, " shall be pro- 
vided for and supported by the town." The town cannot 
wait to hunt up the persons legally liable, before rendering 
aid. " The owner of the slave is primarily liable, and it is 
only his neglect of duty which makes the defendants liable 
at all, and it is admitted that, in consequence of that neglect, 
the defendants would be responsible to any individual -who 
supplied the necessities of the slave," and the judge then said 
he saw no reason why the town also should not recover. 
His opinion, leaving the interpretation of the statutes and 
basing itself on abstract considerations, stated that, " by the 
principles of natural justice they are bound to refund, and I 



44 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [414 

am not satisfied that any technical rule of law can be inter- 
posed to prevent it." 

The opinions in this case seemed important enough to 
devote some space to it. The next case' we note is that of 
Colchester vs. Lyme, for support of Jenny. She had be- 
longed to a citizen of Lyme until fifty-six years of age, when 
she was emancipated and went to live in Colchester. Com- 
ing to want, the town sued her old residence for her support, 
claiming that, as she was over forty-five when emancipated, 
the liability of her master to support her continued, and, 
" while the liability of the master to support the slave remains, 
the incapacity of the slave to acquire a new settlement re- 
mains also." This the defense denied, and the court decided 
in their favor. The opinion stated: " If she had been white, 
or never a slave, she would have had a settlement in Col- 
chester. Does the fact she was once a slave alter matters? 
There was nothing in the statute (of 1777) which in the least 
impaired the right of the master to give entire freedom to his 
slave at any time." The want of a certificate only continued 
the master's liability to support the slave. " By relinquish- 
ing all claims to service and obedience," he " effectually 
emancipated her, and thus she became S7ii Juris and entitled 
to all the rights and privileges of other free citizens of the 
State, among which the right of acquiring a new place 
of settlement was the most important. . . . The town where 
the emancipated slave belongs or has a settlement, is the 
town empowered by statute to recover from the master or 
his heirs,... and if Colchester is such a town, then Col- 
chester only can recover from the former master or his 
representatives."^ 

The last case of the kind is Nezv Haven vs. Huntington, 
decided as late as 1852, in which it was adjudged that the 
settlement of a free woman in Connecticut is not superseded 
by marriage with a slave of another State, nor by his subse- 
quent emancipation, unless the laws of the other State (which 



' Conn. Reports, Xin., p. 274, July, 1S39. 

^(htilford vs. Oxford, Conn. Ileports, EX., 321, is a suit for the 
support of an illegitimate free mulatto. 



415] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 45 

in this case was New York) so provide, and her settlement is 
communicated both to legitimate and illegitimate children 
born in Connecticut after the marriage.' 

Considerable attention has been given to these cases, as 
they illustrate important principles of the laws of the State and 
show how the judges interpreted those laws. 

Miss Prudence Crandall and her School. 

In the autumn of 1831/ Miss Crandall, a Quakeress, resid- 
ing in the southern part of Canterbury, opened a girls' school 
in that town. She had taught at Plainfield successfully, and 
moved to Canterbury, at the request of some prominent 
citizens, buying a house on the Green. Her school was a 
success from the outset, until she received as pupil a colored 
girl, Sarah Harris, about seventeen years of age, the daugh- 
ter of a respectable man who owned a small farm near the 
centre. The girl was a member of the village church, and 
had been at the district school, in the same class as some of 
Miss Crandall's pupils. She now wished "to get a little 
more learning — enough to teach colored children." Pre- 
vious to this admission to the school, Miss Crandall had 
employed as a servant a "nice colored girl," Marcia, who 
was afterward married to Charles Harris, the brother of 
Sarah. Young Harris took Garrison's "Liberator" and 
loaned it to Marcia, who used frequently to show the paper 
to Miss Crandall. " Having been taught from early child- 
hood the sin of slavery," as she wrote in 1869, "my sympa- 
thies were greatly aroused," and so Miss Crandall agreed to 
receive Sarah Harris as a day scholar. " By this act," she 
continued, in the same letter, " I gave great offense. The 
wife of an Episcopalian clergyman, who lived in the village, 
told me that, if I continued that colored girl in my school, it 

' Conn. Reports, XXII. 

> The cMef authorities are Lamed's " Hist. Windham Co.," Vol. 
II., Book IX., Chap. III., pp. 491 sq.; S. J. May, "Recollections of 
the Anti-slaveiy Conflict," pp. 47-71, which Wilson, "Rise and 
FaU," I., pp. 240-245, and Wilhams, " Hist. Negro Race," II., pp. 149- 
156, almost entirely followed; Crandall vs. Conn., Conn. Reports. 



46 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [416 

could not be sustained. I replied to her ' that it might sink, 
then, for I should not turn her out': I veiy soon found that 
some of my school would not return, if the colored girl was 
retained. Under the circumstances, I made up my mind 
that, if it were possible, I would teach colored girls exclu- 
sively." Now, though Miss Crandall was undoubtedly 
shamefully treated by the people of the town, they neverthe- 
less had just ground of complaint from the course she pur- 
sued. Because some of her patrons were offended at the 
entrance of one colored girl into her school, she determined 
to give up teaching white girls entirely, and to bring a 
number of colored children into the most aristocratic part of 
the town, while the people who had received her most kindly 
and had consented to act as visitors to her school were not 
regarded. She consulted leading Abolitionists in New 
York and Boston, but no one in the town, whose interests 
were most immediately concerned in the opening of such a 
school. Some irritation might therefore have been expected, 
but the conduct of the townspeople went beyond all bounds 
and was thoroughly disgraceful. Miss Crandall's conduct, 
on the other hand, apart from her initial lack of consideration 
for the judgment of those around her, was consistent, cour- 
ageous, and praiseworthy. 

When she announced her purpose to open a school for 
•* young ladies and little misses of color," dismay seized all. A 
committee of four of the chief men of the village visited her 
to remonstrate with her, and, on her proving obdurate, a 
town meeting was called for March 9, 1833, to meet in the 
Congregational Meeting-house. Miss Crandall had not 
shown a conciliating spirit. When Esquire Frost had 
labored to convince her of the impropriety of her step " in a 
most kind and affecting manner," and "hinted at danger 
from these leveling opinions " and from intermarriage of 
whites and blacks. Miss Crandall at once replied, " Moses 
had a black wife." She asked Rev. Samuel J. INIay, pastor of 
the Unitarian Church in Brooklyn, George W. Benson, the 
President, and Arnold Bufifum, Agent of the New England 



417] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 47 

Anti-Slavery Society, to present her cause at the town 
meeting. Judge Rufus Adams offered the following reso- 
lutions: "Whereas, it hath been publicly announced that a 
school is to be opened in this town on the first Monday of 
April next, using the language of the advertisement, ' for 
young ladies and little misses of color,' or in other words 
for the people of color, the obvious tendency of which would 
be to collect, within the town of Canterbury, large numbers 
of persons from other States, whose characters and habits 
might be various and unknown to us, thereby rendering 
insecure the persons, property, and reputations of our citi- 
zens. Under such circumstances, our silence might be con- 
strued into an approbation of the project. Thereupon: 

" Resolved, that the locality of a school for the people of 
color, at any place within the limits of this town, for the 
admission of persons of foreign jurisdiction, meets with our 
unqualified disapprobation, and it is to be understood that 
the inhabitants of Canterbury protest against it in the most 
earnest manner. 

" Resolved, that a committee be now appointed, to be com- 
posed of the civil authority and selectmen, who shall make 
known to the person contemplating the establishment of said 
school, the sentiments and objections entertained by this 
meeting, in reference to said school, pointing out to her the 
injurious effects and incalculable evils resulting from such 
an establishment within this town, and persuade her to aban- 
don the project." 

The Hon. Andrew T, Judson, a Democratic politician, later 
Congressman and United States District Judge, who resided 
next to Miss Crandall, and who had been horrified at the 
prospect of having a school of negro girls as his neighbor, 
addressed the meeting "in a tone of bitter and relentless 
hostility " to Miss Crandall. After him. Rev. Mr. May and 
Mr. Bufifum presented a letter from Miss Crandall to the 
Moderator, asking that they might be heard in her behalf. 
Judson and others at once interposed and prevented their 
speaking. They had intended to propose that, if the town 



48 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [418 

would repay Miss Crandall the cost of her house and give 
her time to remove, she would open her school in some more 
retired part of the town or vicinity. Doubtless this would 
not have been satisfactory to the people, but that does not 
excuse the lack of courtesy on the part of the people in 
refusing to hear what Miss Crandall's agents had to propose. 
The resolutions were passed, but nothing deterred the fear- 
less woman. She opened her school with from ten to twenty 
girls as pupils.^ This still more enraged the townspeople, 
and, at a second town meeting, it was resolved: "That the 
establisJiment or rendezvous, falsely denominated a school, 
was designed by its projectors, as the theatre, as the place to 
promulgate their disgusting doctrines of amalgamation and 
their pernicious sentiments of subverting the Union. Their 
pupils were to have been congregated here from all quarters, 
under the false pretense of educating them; but really to 
SCATTER FIREBRANDS, arrotvs, and death among brethren of 
our own blood." A committee of ten was appointed to draw 
up and circulate a petition to the General Assembly, " depre- 
cating the evil consequences of bringing from other States 
and other towns, people of color for any purpose, and more 
especially for the purpose of disseminating the principles and 
doctrines opposed to the benevolent colonizing system." 
Other towns were asked to prefer "petitions for the same 
laudable object." The people had completely lost their 
heads and were mad with rage and fear. As a result of this 
petition, the shameful act of May 24, 1833, before referred to, 
was passed. 

The conduct of the people of Canterbury was even more 
indefensible than their words. They hunted up an obsolete 
vagrant law, providing that the selectmen might warn any 
non-inhabitant of the State to depart, demanding $1.67 for 
each week tliey should thereafter stay, and, if the fine were 
not paid, or the person were still in the town after ten days, 
he should be whipped on the bare body, with not over ten 



' Pupils came from Philadelphia, New York, Providence, and 
Boston, says May. 



419] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 49 

stripes. An endeavor was made to put this law in force 
against Miss Crandall's pupils, and one of them, Ann Eliza 
Hammond, a girl of seventeen, from Providence, was arrested. 
Rev. Mr. May and other residents of Brooklyn gave bonds 
for $10,000, so the attempt was given up. 

The lawless treatment of the school and scholars was 
worse than the legal one. The stage-driver refused to carry 
the pupils to the school, the neighbors refused to give Miss 
Crandall a pail of water, though they knew their sons had 
filled her well with stable refuse the night before. Boys fol- 
lowed the school with homs and hootings on the streets, and 
stones and rotten eggs were thrown at Miss Crandall's win- 
dows. A systematic policy of boycotting and intimidation 
was carried out. The village stores were closed against the 
school. Men went to Miss Crandall's father, a mild and 
peaceable Quaker living in the southern part of the town, 
and told him, "when lawyers, courts and jurors are leagued 
against you, it will be easy to raise a mob and tear down your 
house." He was terrified and wished his daughter to yield, 
but she boldly refused. He petitioned the Legislature against 
the passage of the act of May 24, 1833, but in vain. The 
sentiment of men from other towns was that they would not 
want a negro school on their common. 

After the passage of the act, two leading citizens told him 
" your daughter will be taken up the same way as for steal- 
ing a horse or for burglar}^ Her property will not be taken, 
but she will be put in jail, not having the liberty of the yard. 
There is no mercy to be shown about it." 

A few days later, Messrs. May and George W. Benson 
visited Miss Crandall, to advise with her as to the fine and 
imprisonment provided by the act as penalty for teaching 
colored children not residing in the State. As Wilson puts 
it, the result of their conference was a determination to leave 
her in the hands " of those with whom the hideous act orig- 
inated." 

On June 27, 1833, Miss Crandall was arrested, brought 
before a Justice of the Peace and committed for trial before 



50 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [420 

the County Court in August. Mr. May and her friends were 
told that she was in the sheriff's hands and would be put in 
jail unless bonds were given. They resolved not to do so, 
but to force the framers of the statute to give bonds them- 
selves or commit her to jail. The sheriff and jailer saw this 
would be a disgrace and lingered ; but her friends were firm, 
and Miss Crandall spent the night in a cell which had last 
been occupied by a condemned murderer. The next morn- 
ing bonds were given, by whom it does not appear; but the 
fact of her incarceration caused a revulsion of popular feel- 
ing in her favor. Mr. Arthur Tappan wrote at once to ]\Ir. 
May, indorsing his conduct, authorizing him to spare no 
reasonable cost in defense at his expense and to employ the 
ablest counsel. 

The Hon. Wm. W. Ellsworth, Calvin Goddard, and Henry 
Strong were retained and prepared to argue that the laws 
were unconstitutional. Mr. Tappan took such interest in the 
case that he left his business to have a personal interview 
with Miss Crandall and Mr. May. To the latter he said, 
" The cause of the whole oppressed race of our country is to 
be much affected by the decision of this question. You are 
almost helpless without the press. You must issue a paper, 
publish it largely, send it to all persons whom you know in 
the country and State, and to all the principal newspapers of 
the country. Many will subscribe for it and contribute 
largely to its support, and I will pay whatever it may cost." 
Mr. May took the advice and started the " Unionist," with 
Charles C. Burleigh, of Plainfield, as editor. 

On August 23, the case of T/^c State versus Crandall was 
tried at Brooklyn, before Judge Joseph Eaton; Messrs. A. T, 
Judson, Jonathan Welch, Esq,, and J. Bulkley appearing as 
counsel for the State. Mr. Judson denied that negroes were 
citizens in States where they were not enfranchised, and 
asked why men should be educated who could not be free- 
men. The defense claimed that the law conflicted with the 
clause of the United States Constitution allowing to citizens 
of one State equal rights in others. Tlie judge charged 



421] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 51 

the jury that the law was constitutional, but the jury disa- 
greed, standing seven for conviction and five for acquittal. 

The prosecution did not wait for a new trial in December, 
but went before the Connecticut Superior Court. Judge 
Daggett presided over the October Session. According to 
Mr. May, he was known to be an advocate of the new law, and 
in the course of an elaborate opinion said, " it would be a 
perversion of the terms and the well known rule of construc- 
tion to say that slaves, free-blacks, or Indians were citizens 
within the meaning of the Constitution." The jury gave a 
verdict against Miss Crandall and her counsel appealed to 
the Court of Errors. It heard the case on July 22,' 1834, 
and reversed the previous decision, on the ground of " in- 
sufficiency of information," and that there was no allegation 
that the school was set up without a license, and so left the 
constitutional question unsettled. 

Meantime the school had been continued, W. H. Burleigh 
and his sister and Miss Crandall's sister Almira assisting in 
the work." They even had at times a sort of exliibition of the 
pupils' progress. The opposition to the school in Canter- 
bury did not diminish; the trustees of the Congregational 
church refused to let Miss Crandall and her pupils worship 
there. The Friends Meeting at Black Hill and the Baptist 
church at Packerville, both a few miles off, received tliem, 
but were almost the only ones to show kindness. Even the 
physicians of the place refused to attend Miss Crandall's 
household. After the opponents failed in the courts, they 
resorted more than before to violent means. Early in Sep- 
tember an attempt was made to bum her house, and her 
enemies went so far as to arrest a colored man she had 
employed to do some work for her, and to claim she had 
the fire started to excite sympathy. A still more dastardly 
attack was made on the building on September 9, by a body 
of men, who at night broke all the windows and doers with 

'A. T. Judson and 0. F. Cleaveland ' f or State, W. W. Ellsworth 
and Calvin Goddard for Miss Crandall. 
Lamed, II., p. 499. 



52 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [422 

clubs and crowbars. The house was left nearly uninhabit- 
able. Miss Crandall's friends all advised her to give up the 
school, and she did so, sending the twenty girls then compos- 
ing it to their homes. Mr. May said when he gave the 
advice to yield, the words blistered his lips and his bosom 
glowed with indignation. "I felt ashamed of Connecticut," 
he wrote in his Memoirs, " ashamed of my State, ashamed of 
my country, ashamed of my color." 

Miss Crandall was soon after married to Mr. Calvin 
Philleo and left Canterbury. The town, feeling obliged to 
justify its conduct, spread upon its records the following 
resolve: "That the Government of the United States, the 
nation with all its institutions, of right belong to the white 
men, who now possess them, . . . that our appeal to the 
Legislature of our own State, in a case of such peculiar 
mischief, was not only due to ourselves, but to the obliga- 
tions devolving upon us under the Constitution. To have 
been silent would have been participating in the wrongs 
intended.. . .We rejoice that the appeal was not in vain." 

Here ends the wretched story. But its results were far- 
reaching. As Lamed, the historian of Windham County, well 
writes, if Miss Crandall did not succeed in educating negro 
girls, she did in altering the opinions of that part of Con- 
necticut, which became the strongest anti-slavery part of the 
State. 

Nancy Jackson vs. Bulloch. 

This celebrated case, interpreting the acts of 1774 and 1784 
and practically ending slavery in Connecticut, deserves 
especial notice. In this case, the Supreme Court of the State, 
by a bare majority, decided that the statutes just mentioned 
" were designed to terminate slaver)^ in Connecticut and that 
they are sufficient for that purpose. The act of 1774 aimed a 
blow at the increase of slaves, that of 1784 struck at the 
existence of slavery. The former was intended to weaken 
the system ; the latter to destroy it. The former lopped ofif a 
limb from the trunk; the latter struck a deadly blow at the 



423] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 53 

root, and ever since it has withered and decayed, and, with 
the exception of here and there a dying Hmb, slavery has 
disappeared from our State and will in a short time be known 
only in our history, unless indeed it is to revive and flourish, 
by the construction we shall now give to the statutes. To us 
it appears as if there was nothing in the intent of the Legisla- 
ture, or in the words of the act, which requires such a con- 
struction.'" 

The facts of the case were as follows: J. S. Bulloch, a 
citizen of Georgia, owned a slave, Nancy Jackson, bom in 
Georgia in 1813. In June, 1835, he came to Connecticut and 
settled at Hartford, to live there temporarily while his children 
were being educated. 

Since that time Nancy had been residing with Bulloch's 
family in Hartford, while he had only spent the summer in 
Connecticut, returning to Georgia for the winter. Nancy, 
through her next friend, brought an action for unjust confine- 
ment against Bulloch, and, a writ of Habeas Corpus being 
sued out, the case was heard in June, 1837. Chief Justice 
Williams, in giving the opinion of the Court, went over tlie 
whole law of slavery, and this makes the decision more val- 
uable. He took the broad ground " that every human being 
has a right to liberty, as well as to life and property, and to 
enjoy the fruit of his own labor; that slavery is contrary to 
the principles of natural right and to the great law of love; 
that it is founded on injustice and fraud and can be supported 
only by the provisions of positive law, are positions which it 
is not necessary to prove." The defendant admitted that 
slavery was local and must be governed by State law, and 
that neither the fugitive slave clause nor any other clause 
of the United States Constitution applies to this case; there- 
fore he can have no higher claims than an inhabitant of a 
foreign State. " It cannot be denied that in this State we 

have not been entirely free from the evil of slavery A 

small remnant still remains to remind us of the fact 

How or when it was introduced into this State we are not 



^ Conn. Reports, XII., p. 38. 



54 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [424 

informed.. . .It probably crept in silently, until it became 
sanctioned by custom or usage." He went on to state tliat 
if it depended entirely on that fact, it might be enquired 
whether tlie custom was " reasonable," but for a century 
slavery has been somewhat recognized by statute and thus has 
received the implied sanction of the Legislature. He then 
takes up the claims of the plaintifif's counsel that the slaves 
are freed by the first article of the Bill of Rights, which states 
that all men are equal in rights " when they form a social 
compact." This, says the Judge, does not apply, as slaves 
would not be parties to a social compact, and the article is not 
as broad as the famous Massachusetts one. Another article 
of the Bill of Rights states, "the people shall be secure in 
their persons, houses, papers, and possessions from unreason- 
able searches and seizures " ; but the usage of " people " in 
the United States Constitution proved, according to the 
court, tliat the word here need not include slaves. A third 
article in the Bill of Rights provided that " no person shall be 
arrested, detained, or punished, except in cases clearly war- 
ranted by law." But was this detention warranted by the 
law? This is to be answered by examination of the statutes; 
that of 1774 prohibited the importation of slaves into Con- 
necticut, that of 1784 provided that all born "in the State" 
after March i of that year should be free at the age of twenty- 
five. This last law. Swift thought,^ " has laid the foundation 
for the gradual abolition of slavery; for, as the children of 
slaves are born free, being servants only until twenty-five 
years of age, the consequence is that as soon as the slaves 
now in being shall have become extinct, slavery will cease, 
as the importation of slaves in future is prohibited ... As 
slavery is gradually diminishing and will in a short time 
be extinguished, there being but few slaves in the State, it 
will be unnecessary^, in this place, to make any remarks upon 
a subject that has so long engrossed the attention of tlie 
humane and benevolent part of mankind in the present age." 
These words are quoted approvingly and the statement is 



1 Swift's System, I., 220. 



425] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 55 

made that, unless there is some defect in the acts, tliere has 
been no real slavery in Connecticut since 1784. The acts 
were passed, not to interfere with vested rights, but to prevent 
the increase of evils which would result from the competi- 
tion of slave labor " with the labor of poor whites, tending to 
reduce the price of their work and prevent their employment, 
and to bring the free laborer, in some measure, into the 
ranks with slaves." The Court decided that, though the law 
of 1774 did not prevent a master transporting a slave through 
the State, it did prevent him from keeping her there, and that 
a slave may be " left," " although the owner does not intend 
to reside permanently himself, or to. suffer such slave perma- 
nently to remain here." On the construction of this word 
"left," and on the post-nati argument from the act of 1784, 
the Court declared Nancy free. As to the words " bom 
within this State," in the act of 1784, the Court held "within 
this State " surplusage, stating, as a reason, that the Legisla- 
ture could not legislate for any other State. At any rate it is 
certain that foreigners could claim no more rights than 
natives, and as natives can only hold persons as slaves under 
twenty-five years of age, citizens of other States could do no 
more. 

The dissenting judges laid stress on the words " in this 
State" in the act of 1784, and claimed that "left," in the act 
of 1774, meant to desert, abandon, withdraw, or depart from, 
that mere length of stay does not matter, as long as the animus 
revertcndi remains. They state, however, they are glad their 
interpretation does not consign the woman to slavery ; though 
they " maintain that the State of Connecticut, from time 
immemorial, has been, and to a certain extent now is, a slave- 
holding State." 

This case showed clearly that the judiciary of the State 
would lean to the side of freedom whenever possible, and 
virtually made Connecticut a free State by its liberal con- 
struction of the laws, though tlie formal removal of the State 
from the slaveholding column was not to take place for 
some ten years more. 



56 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [4=26 

The Negroes on the "Amistad." 

In August, 1839/ the people of Connecticut, New York 
and Rhode Island were excited by tidings of a suspicious 
craft, thought to be a pirate. It was a long, low, black 
schooner, manned by negroes, and orders were issued to the 
United States steamer Fulton and several revenue cutters to 
chase her. On August 26, 1839, the United States brig 
Washington was sounding off Culloden Point, lying between 
Gardner's and Montauk Points. While there, a vessel was 
•noticed lying off the shore and a boat passing between her 
and the shore, where a number of persons were with carts and 
horses. Lieut. Gedney, commanding the Washington, sent 
a boat to investigate, and when the vessel was boarded she 
proved to be manned by negroes, of whom about twenty 
were on board, togetlier with two white iiien, who came for- 
ward and claimed protection." The story was soon told. 
The vessel was a slaver, the Amistad, which had brought 
African slaves kidnapped in April, from Lemboko, in the 
Mendi country, near Liberia. Jose Ruiz bought forty-nine 
of them and Pedro ]\Iontes took four more. These they 
re-embarked on the Amistad at Havana on June 27, 1839, 
and sailed for Guanajah, Porto Principe. It will be remem- 
bered that the slave trade was prohibited by Spain and the 
Africans so introduced ought still to be free. The trade was, 
however, carried on surreptitiously to a large extent, and 
those thus taken to Cuba were called " Bozals," in distinc- 
tion from the " Ladrinos,"^ or native slaves. The ship's 

^ This account is chiefly drawn from Wilson, " Rise and Fall of 
the Slave Power," Vol. I., pp. 45G-466; J. Q. Adams' Diaiy; Niles' 
Piegister; Williams, " EQst. of Nesro Race," 11., p. 93; Barber, 
Jno. W., "A History of the Amistad Captives. . .with Biograph- 
ical Sketches of each of the smTivLng Afilcans, also an account of 
the trials had on their case, etc.," Xew Haven, 1840; S. E. Bald- 
win, "The Captives of the Amistad.'' N. H. Col. Ilist. Papers. IV.. 
pp. 397-404. 

= Niles' Reg.. Vol. 57. j.]'- 1- -^^i- 29- 

3A false translation of this word in a public document caused 
great trouble. Niles' Reg., Vol. 59, p. 301. 



427] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 57 

papers falsely referred to them as " ladrinos," legal slaves. 
The captain of the ship was Ramon Ferrers, and the crew 
seems to have consisted of two men and a cook, besides a 
negro cabin-boy. On the fifth night out from Havana the 
slaves rose, under the leadership of Joseph Cinquez or 
Cingue, attacked and slew the captain and cook with knives 
such as were used to cut sugar-cane, and, according to one 
story, slew the two men in the crew. The cabin-boy, 
Antonio, however, said in court that the men lowered a 
small boat and escaped. Ruiz and Montes were bound and 
kept alive to navigate the ship. The negroes tried to return to 
Africa and had the vessel steered eastward by the sun during 
the day, while by night the white men steered to the north- 
west, hoping to fall in with a man-of-war or to reach some 
country. After boxing for four days in Bahamas Channel, 
they steered for St. Andrew Island, near New Providence; 
thence to Green Key, where the blacks laid in a supply of 
water; thence for New Providence, where the negroes would 
not suffer the vessel to enter port, but anchored off the coast 
every night. The whites were treated with some severity, 
and with the constant fear of death staring them in the face, 
their lot must have been most unenviable. Montes, too, was 
suffering from two wounds in the head and arm. The ship was 
three days off Long Island, to the eastward of New Provi- 
dence, and then Uvo months on the ocean, during which time 
tliey were boarded several times by vessels, once by an 
American schooner from Kingston, which remained along- 
side for twenty-four hours and traded with the negroes, find- 
ing they had plenty of money. This was the Spaniards' 
story, to which they added that they were always sent below 
in such cases. Our admiration for Cinquez rises when we 
consider that, for this long period, he managed to continue 
his ascendancy over his comrades, especially considering how 
difficult were the circumstances of the case. On August 20, 
near New York harbor, a pilot-boat met the Amistad and 
furnished the negroes apples, and when, shortly after, a second 
one met them, they suspected the whites had taken them to a 



58 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [428 

strange land and refused to let the pilot board her, while they 
exhibited such anger towards tlie Spaniards that they feared 
for their lives more than ever. On the 24th, off Montauk 
Light, the Spaniards tried to run the vessel aground, but 
failed, and the tide drifted it on, until they anchored where 
they were found. After anchoring, about twenty of the 
negroes went on shore for water and three of them bought 
dogs from some of the inliabitants. The news quickly 
spread. Capt. Green, who came up, according to his report, 
induced the negroes to promise to give him the ship. They 
desired him to take them to Sierra Leone. Just then 
appeared Lieut. Gedney and took possession of the vessel and 
of the negroes. Before Cinquez would suffer himself to be 
taken he leapt overboard and loosed from his waist into the 
water 300 doubloons which he had taken from the captain. 
The Africans taken were forty-four in number,^ the rest hav- 
ing died. Of this number, three were girls, the rest men. 
Cinquez, the leader, was described as about twenty-five or 
twenty-six years of age, five feet eight inches in height, erect 
in figure, well built, and very active. His countenance was 
unusually intelligent; he possessed uncommon decision and 
coolness, and a composure indicative of much courage. Lieut. 
Gedney took the Amistad with all on board to New London, 
where a judicial investigation was held on August 29, on 
board the Washington, before the United States District 
Judge A. T. Judson, whom we have already seen in the Cran- 
dall trouble. As a result of this examination the Africans 
were taken to the New Haven jail on Sept. i, and on the 14th 
were removed to Hartford, save one left behind on account of 
sickness. The case now became very complicated. Ruiz and 
Montes claimed the Africans as their slaves and preferred 
charges of murder against them. The Africans claimed free- 
dom and, through their friends, preferred charges of assault 
and batter}' and of false imprisonment against Ruiz and 

* Niles' Reg., Vol. 57, p. 48 and 50. They were shown in Hartford 
at 121^ cents admission. Wild stories were spread that one of them 
was a cannibal. 



429] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 59 

Montes. Lieut. Gedney claimed salvage on vessel, cargo and 
slaves. Capt. Green and the Long Islanders had a counter 
claim for the same. The owners of the cargo in Havana 
claimed it, and the Spanish minister, " forgetful of his country's 
laws," demanded not only that it, but also that tlie blacks be 
given up under the treaty of 1795, that the negroes might be 
tried in Cuba, and maintained that if they should be tried, con- 
victed and executed in Connecticut, the effect would not be as 
good as if done in Cuba, The District Attorney, Holabird, 
claimed that the Africans should be held subject to the Pres- 
ident's orders, to be taken back to Africa, according to the 
Act of 181 9, and that, as the Government of Spain had 
claimed them, they should be kept until the pleasure of the 
United States be known. Holabird was thoroughly subser- 
vient to the slavery interest and wrote to the Secretary of 
State asking if there were not treaty stipulations which would 
authorize " our government " to deliver them up to Spain, and 
if so, " whether it would be done before our court sits," as he 
did not wish them tried there. The Secretary of State knew 
there was no such treaty, and if there were, as Wilson well 
says, the President could not supersede criminal warrants, but 
he instructed the District Attorney "to take care that no 
proceedings of your Circuit Court, or any other judicial 
tribunal, place the vessel, cargo, or slaves (' a gratuitous 
assumption,' remarks Wilson) beyond the control of the Fed- 
eral Executive." While the demands of Calderon, the Span- 
ish minister, were supported b}' the pro-slavery press, the 
anti-slavery men in New York City appointed a committee, 
composed of S. S. Jocelyn, Joshua Leavitt, and Lewis Tappan, 
to solicit funds, employ counsel, and see that the interests of 
the Africans were carefully cared for. As a result, Seth P. 
Staples and Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., of New York, were 
employed as counsel and wrote to President Van Buren 
denying that these Africans were slaves, contending that, in 
rising against the whites, they only obeyed the dictates of 
self-defense, and praying that their case should not be 
decided "in the recesses of the Cabinet, where these un- 



GO History of Slavery in Connecticut. [430 

friended men can have no counsel and can produce no proof; 
but in the halls of Justice, with the safeguards she throws 
around the unfriended and oppressed." The letter was turned 
over to Felix Grundy, the Attorney General, a violent oppo- 
nent of emancipation, and one who favored surrender to Spain. 
He replied he could see no " legal principle upon which the 
government would be justified in going into an investigation 
for the purpose of ascertaining the facts set forth in the 
papers clearing the vessel from one Spanish port to another" 
as evidence as to whether the negroes were slaves or not. 
He thought, as the Africans were charged with violation of 
Spain's laws, they should be surrendered; so that, if guilty, 
" they might not escape punishment," and that, to fulfil treaty 
obligations, the President should issue an order, directing 
the marshal to deliver the vessel and cargo to such persons 
as Calderon should designate. This Van Buren could not do, 
as there was no extradition treaty with Spain, which fact 
Grundy ought to have known. On Sept. 17th, the United 
States Circuit Court met in Hartford, Judge Thompson pre- 
siding, and on the i8th a writ of Habeas Corpus was applied 
for by the two lawyers mentioned and Roger S. Baldwin of 
New Haven, in behalf of the three girls, who were only de- 
tained as witnesses. On the 21st instant, the same writ was 
applied for in behalf of the rest of the Africans. Judge Thomp- 
son overruled the claim of Lieut. Gedney and Capt. Green for 
salvage, but refused to grant habeas corpus to any, though 
ample security were offered, on the ground that the case 
would first come regularly before the District Court, and the 
District Court having jurisdiction is bound to provide neces- 
saries for the Africans, until their status is detennined. jMr. 
Staples claimed the case should be tried in New York; but 
ihe judge decided that, as the ship was taken on the high 
seas, /. c, beyond low water-mark, the suit should be tried 
where the vessel was first brought to land. He also decided 
the Africans should not be held for murder on the high seas.' 
On Oct. 19th, the District Court met, heard testimony, and 

' Full text of decision in Niles' Reg., Vol. 57. pp. 73-75. 



431] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 61 

adjourned to meet in New Haven, Jan. 7th, 1840/ On Nov. 
26th, 1839, De Argaiz, the new Spanish minister, wrote to the 
Secretary of State, denying the right of the United States 
courts to take cognizance of the case, and complained that 
through their delay, public vengeance had not been satisfied, 
for Spain " does not demand the delivery of slaves but of 
assassins." From this high moral tone, he descended in 
another letter to ask that, on the release of the negroes by the 
court, the President should order the transportation of the 
negroes to Cuba in a government vessel. The assurance of 
this request was not resented by the President. On the con- 
trary, he ordered such a vessel to be ready to take the negroes, 
if released, to Cuba and deliver them to the Captain General 
of the island. This vessel, the Grampus, was stationed off 
New Haven, three days after the court assembled, ostensibly 
to give the negroes " opportunity to prove their freedom." 
Before the court even assembled, Lieuts. Gedney and Meade 
of the Washington were ordered to be ready to go to Cuba 
with the negroes at the United Stages' expense, " for the pur- 
pose of affording their testimony in any proceedings that may 
be ordered by the authorities of Cuba in the matter." This 
shameful pre-judgment of the case and eager desire to be sub- 
servient to the slavery interest is most disgraceful to Van 
Buren's administration. On Jan. 7th, 1840, the District 
Court met, and the counsel for the Africans offered such con- 
clusive testimony that the negroes were native Africans and 
not Spanish subjects, that Judge Judson said the point was 
clearly proved. Gedney" claimed one-third of the vessel and 
cargo as salvage, which was given him by the Court; but his 
claim for salvage on the negroes was refused by the Court, 
as the negroes could not be sold, there being no law to per- 
mit this to be done. Green said he did not wish salvage on 
flesh, but, if the negroes were slaves, he wanted his share. 

^ Fiill text of proceedings in Niles' Reg., Vol. 57, pp. 222. 22.S. 

' The Spanisli owners imsuecessfully tried to prevent his getting 
salvage, on the groimd that, as a United States officer, what he did 
was in the line of his duty and should have no pay. 



62 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [432 

The Court speedily dismissed his clainx and decided that only 
Antonio, the cabin-boy, should be given up to Spain, and that 
the rest should be transported to Africa. This decision was 
made by a strong Democrat and a man in nowise friendly to 
negroes, as was shown in the Canterbury affair, and is so the 
more noteworthy/ The District Attcmey, by order of the 
Secretary of State, appealed the case and, in his zeal, sent a 
messenger to Washington to have a clerical mistake in the 
President's warrant corrected, that the negroes might be held. 
In returning the warrant, Mr. Forsyth, the Secretary of State, 
wrote, " I have to state, by direction of the President, that if 
the decision of the court is such as is anticipated, the order 
of tlie President is to be carried into execution, unless an 
appeal shall actually have been interposed. You are not to 
take it for granted that it will be interposed." That is, if the 
counsel for the Africans did not at once appeal, these were to 
be hurried on the Grampus and taken to Cuba. On the very 
day'' the court assembled. Van Buren sent directions to tlie 
Marshal for this purpose, and so " flagitious and barefaced 
was deemed this order," says Wilson, that some of Van 
Buren's friends said later that it was issued without his 
knowledge, by his " sanguine and not over-scrupulous Sec- 
retary." Justice Thompson affirmed the decision of the 
District Court pro forma, and left the whole matter to be 
decided by the United States Supreme Court on an appeal. 
The committee appointed to care for the Africans now pre- 
pared for the last appeal, without stint of time or money, 
and to the four' lawyers already employed added John 
Quincy Adams, with " his great learning and forensic ability, 
his commanding position and well-earned reputation." As 
early as Sept. 23d, 1839, we read in the diar}-- of the "old 
man eloquent," " Mr. Francis Jackson brought me a letter 
from Mr. Ellis Gray Loring, requesting my opinion upon the 
knotty questions involved in the case of the Spanish ship 

' Niles' Reg., Vol. 57, pp. 336, 352, 384. 

'April 29, 1840, at Now Haven. Niles' Reg., Vol. 58, p. 160. 

' Mr. Kimberlr^y made the fourth. 



433] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 63 

Amistad 1 desired Mr. J. to say that I felt some deli- 
cacy about answering his letter, until Judge Thompson's 
opinion shall be published and until the final decision of the 
Government in the whole case." Meantime he asked Jack- 
son to look up the records. Soon after, on Oct. ist, we read/ 
" that which now absorbs a great part of my time and all my 
good feelings is tlie case of fifty-three African negroes, taken 
at sea off Montauk Point by Lieut. Gedney."' He gives a 
summary of tlie case up to that date and, on the next day, 
having thrown himself into the case with all his accustomed 
zeal and energy-, he writes that he has examined all the 
authorities. " Here is an enormous consumption of time, 
only to perplex myself with a multitude of questions upon 
which I cannot yet make up opinions, for which I am willing 
to be responsible."^ We hear no more of the case for some 
time. On Feb. loth, 1840, he offered a resolution calling 
upon the President^ for papers concerning the Amistad and, 
on May 25th, oft'ered a resolution denouncing the detention 
and imprisonment of the Africans, which was read but not 
received." His interest in the case continued, and on Oct. 
27th, Ellis Gi-ay Loring and Lewis Tappan called on this 
dauntless advocate of the right of petition and entreated him*' 
to act as assistant counsel for the Africans at the January 
term of the Supreme Court. He writes : " I endeavored to 
excuse myself upon the plea of my age and inefficiency, of 
the excessive burden of my duties.. . .But they urged me 
so much and represented the case of those unfortunate men 
as so critical, it being a case of life and death, that I yielded 
and told them that, if by the blessing of God my health and 
strength should permit, I would argue the case before the 
Supreme Court, and I implore the mercy of Almighty God 
so to control my temper, to enlighten my soul, and to give 
me utterance, that I may prove myself in every respect equal 
to the task."' 

^ Diary, X., 1.32. ^Djary, X., 133. -Diaiy, X., 135. 

^Diaiy, X., 215. Mies' Reg., Vol. 58, p. 59. 

5 Diary, X., 296. 'Diary, X., 35S. 

■Diary, X., 360. NUes' Keg., Vol. 57, pp. 99, 105, 176. 



64 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [434 

A month later, Nov. 17th, he visited Gov. Baldwin in New- 
Haven and saw the .prisoners, tliirty-six of whom were con- 
fined in one chamber, in size about 30 by 20 feet. All but 
one of the men seemed under thirty. Three of them tried to 
read to him from the New Testament, and one wrote a tol- 
erable hand. The chiefs, Cinquez anS Grabow, had remark- 
able countenances, he thought. The people of New Haven, 
and especially the students in the Yale Divinity School, did 
not neglect the temporal or spiritual interests of the captives; 
they fed and clothed them, studied their language, taught 
them to read and write, and instructed them in the truths of 
Christianity. 

During the following months' Mr. Adams busily prepared 
for the case, being assisted by Mr. Stephen Fox, the British 
minister. On Feb. 22d, the Amistad case came up before 
the august tribunal. On that day, Attorney-General Henry 
D. Gilpin spoke for tlie government and Gov. Baldwin for 
the captives, in a " sound and eloquent, but exceedingly mild 
and moderate argument,"' which he continued on the next 
day. 

On the 24th, John Quincy Adams rose^ to speak before an 
audience that filled, but did not crowd, the court-room, and 
in which he remarked there were not many ladies. He wrote 
in his diary: "I had been deeply distressed and agitated till 
the moment when I rose, and then my spirit did not sink- 
within me. With grateful heart for aid from above, though 
in humiliation for the weakness incident to the limits of my 
powers, I spoke for four hours and a half. . .The stmc- 
ture of my argument. . .is perfectly simple and comprelien- 
sive. . .admitting the steady and undeviating pursuit of 
one fundamental principle." Against him " an immense 
array of power — the Executive Administration, instigated by 
the minister of a foreign nation, has been brought to bear in 

' Diaiy, X., '^m, 399, 401. Nilos' Reg., A'ol. 57. p. 417. Vol. 5S, p. 3. 
Calhoun aniinaclverts on Brilisli interference on INIarch 1.3. 1840. 
Niles' Reg., Vol. 58, p. 140. 

'Diary, X.. 420. s Diary. X., 431. 



435] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 65 

this case on tlie side of injustice.. . .1 did not, I could not 
answer public expectation; but I have not yet utterly failed. 
God speed me to the end." On the 25th, he spoke for four 
and a half hours more, and on March ist, the Court having 
meantime been in adjournment on account of the sudden 
death of Mr. Justice Barbour, he spoke four hours more and 
finished his argument. On the next day Mr. Gilpin closed 
the case for the United States. Mr. Adams, in his argument, 
sternly condemned the National Government from tlie Presi- 
dent down.' He maintained that these Africans were torn 
from home and shipped against the laws of the United States 
and the laws of nations, that their passage on the Amistad 
was in law and fact a continuance of the original voyage, and 
that sixteen of the number had perished through the cruelty 
of Ruiz and Montes, on whose souls the ghosts of these slain 
must sit heavy through the closing hours of life. He anim- 
adverted severely on the conduct of the Secretary of State, 
saying that he ought instantly to have answered the Spanish 
minister that his demands were inadmissible and that the 
President had no power to do what was requested. He 
should have said that he could not deliver up the ship to the 
owner, for he was dead ; that the question depended upon the 
courts ; that a declaration to the President that the courts had 
no power to try the case involved an offensive demand, and 
that the delivering the negroes by the President and sending 
them beyond the seas for trial was making the President " a 
constable, a catchpole." The Secretary of State had not 
asserted the rights of the nation against these extraordinary 
demands. " He has degraded the country in the face of the 
civilized world, not only by allowing these demands to 
remain unanswered, but by proceeding, I am obliged to say, 
throughout the whole transaction, as if the Executive were 
earnestly desirous to comply with every one of these 
demands." He said the Spanish minister persisted in his 
requests because "he was not told instantly, without the 
delay of an hour, that this government could never admit 

1 Diary, X., 435. 



66 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [436 

such claims, and would be offended if they were repeated, or 
any portion of them. Yet all these claims, monstrous, 
absurd, and inadmissible as they are, have been urged and 
repeated for eighteen months on our government, and an 
American Secretary of State evades answering them — evades 
it to such an extent that the Spanish minister reproaches 
him for not answering his arguments." In his scathing and 
relentless manner he next proceeded to attack Grundy's 
order, mentioned previously, and asking why it was not acted 
upon, he cried out, " Why did not the President send an order 
at once to the marshal to seize these men and ship them 
beyond the seas, or deliver them to the Spanish minister? 
I am ashamed — I am ashamed of my country, that such an 
opinion should have been delivered by any public officer, 
especially by the legal counsellor of the Executive. I am 
ashamed to stand up before the nations of the earth with 
such an opinion recorded before us as official, and still more, 
adopted by a Cabinet which did not dare to do the deed." 
Such is a brief outline of his forcible address. 

A week later, March 9, Justice Story gave the opinion of 
the court' that the Africans were kidnapped and unlawfully 
transported to Cuba, purchased by Ruiz and Montes with 
knowledge of the fact that they were free, and did not become 
pirates and robbers in taking the Amistad and trying to 
regain their country; that there was nothing in the treaty 
with Spain which justified a surrender, and that the United 
States had to respect the Africans' rights as much as those of 
the Spaniards. " Our opinion is that the decree of the 
Circuit Court affirming that of the District Court ought to 
be affirmed, except so far as it directs the negroes to be deliv- 
ered to the President to be transported to Africa, in pursuance 
of the Act of the 3d of March, 1819, and as to this it ought 
to be reversed, and that the said negroes be declared to be free 
and be dismissed from the custody of the court and go with- 

' Text of decision in Niles' Reg., Vol. 60, p. 40 ff., vide Vol. 60, p. 
32. The influence of Great Britain was continuously thrown on the 
side of freedom. Niles' Reg., Vol. 59, p. 402. 



437] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 67 

out day." The battle was won. John Quincy Adams^ wrote 
to Lewis Tappan, "The captives are free. The part of the 
decree of the District Court which placed them at the dis- 
posal of the President of the United States to be sent to 
Africa, is removed. They are to be discharged from the 
custody of the marshal, free." 

A week later," on March 17, Mr. Adams asked Webster, 
the new Secretary of State, for a public ship to take the 
Africans home, as the court had taken from them " the vessel 
found in their possession. . .and her cargo, their lawful 
prize of war." Webster, Adams writes in his diary, appeared 
startled at the idea that the Amistad and her cargo were the 
property of the Africans, but afterwards said he saw no 
objection to furnish them with a passage in a public ship and 
would speak of it to the Secretary of the Navy. He, how- 
ever, finally refused to grant the request.' 

Lewis Tappan had been largely instrumental in their 
release. He left his business and traveled for weeks in their 
behalf, counseling with friends, getting money, and making 
arrangements to send them to Africa. He exhibited them 
throughout the North for an admission fee to raise money for 
their passage. After their release,* they were sent to Farm- 
itigton, Connecticut, for instruction, and many of them learned 
to speak English and became Christians. Religious people 
throughout the country became interested in them, and when 
the}^ went back to Africa on November 25, 1841, five mis- 
sionaries went with the thirty-five that survived." They 
landed at Sierra Leone on January 15, 1842, whence the 

^ Adams wrote on March 17, 1841, strenuously opposing many of 
the incidental positions taken by the lower courts. Text in full in 
Niles' Eeg., Vol. 60, p. 116. 

-Diary, X., 446. The vessel was sold at New London in October, 
1840. The cargo was also sold, the whole bringing about $6000. 
Niles' Reg., Vol. 59, pp. 144, 318, 347. 

sNUes' Reg., Vol. 62, p. 144. 

^Diaiy, X., 450. NUes' Reg., Vol. 60, p. 64; Vol. 62, pp. 17, 128, 
311. 

6 Niles' Reg., Vol. 62, pp. 96, 224. 



68 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [438 

British Government assisted them home, and from this band 
of negroes in the Amistad sprung the Mendi Mission/ 

In 1844, C. J. Ingersoll/ Chairman of the Committee of 
Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives, reported a 
bill to pay $70,000 to the pretended owners of the Africans; 
but the burning words of Giddings and Adams secured the 
passage of a motion to lay on the table and prevented that 
national disgrace. As late as 1847, however, Polk, in his 
message, recommended an appropriation to the Spanish Gov- 
ernment to be distributed among the claimants/ 

Of the fiftv'-three Africans on the Amistad when it left 
Cuba, nine died on the way, eight at New Haven, and one at 
Farrhington, while Cinque and thirt\^-four others lived to 
return home/ 

Growth of the Anti-Slavery Spirit. 

The coming of the Revolution caused men to question the 
rightfulness of holding one's fellow-man in bondage, and the 
article in the Norzvicli Packet and the resolutions of the 
Danbury town meeting, already quoted, clearly show this. 
The feeling spread. In 1778, the Wethersfield town records 
show a slave. Prince, manumitted, on his master's " being 
convinced'^ of the injustice of the general practice of the 
country in holding negro slaves, during life, without their 
consent." 

Many other such instances are doubtless hidden away 
in the manuscripts of the Town Clerks' offices, but the only 
other one I have come across is that of Abijah Holbrook, 



^ On February 27, 1843, President Tyler recommended Congress, 
by a special message, to refimd the salvage on the Amistad to the 
Spanish Government. Niles' Reg., Vol. G4, p. 66. 

-Adams issued an address to liis constituents on this subject con- 
cerning this. The text is in Nilos' Reg., Vol. 6S, p. S5. 

■'Niles' Reg., Vol. 73, Dec. 11, 1S47. 

"Niles' Reg., \o\. 60, pp. 206. 208, 400. The cabin-boy Antonio 
was to have been retmned to Cuba, but escaped. Niles' Reg., Vol. 
60, p. 96. 

'Mag. of Am. Hist.. XXT., 422. 



439] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 69 

who came from Massachusetts to Torrington in 1787, and 
in 1798 freed his slave, "then about 28 years old" and 
" desirous of being free, . , . being influenced by motives of 
humanity and benevolence, believing that all mankind by 
nature are entitled to equal liberty and freedom." His ne- 
groes, he said, " have served me with faithfulness and fidelity, 
and tliey being now in the prime and vigor of life, and appear 
to be well qualified, as to understanding and economy, to 
maintain and support themselves by their own industry, and 
they manifesting a great desire to be delivered from slavery 
and bondage,"' he grants their desire. Before that, however, 
an organized anti-slavery sentiment had arisen. In Feb- 
ruary, 1789, the Rhode Island' Anti-Slavery Society was 
founded, witli Jonathan Edwards the younger, pastor of a 
New Haven church, as one of the members. In Connecticut 
there were less than 3000 slaves, yet " the strong pro-slavery 
feeling and conservative interest which obtained there opened 
a wide and important field for an Abolition Society." So, in 
1790, the Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society^ was formed, with 
President Ezra Stiles, of Yale College, as its president, and 
Simeon Baldwin as its secretary. 

The Society speedily showed great activity. On January 
7, 1 791, it issued a petition^ to Congress, which was referred 
to a special committee and never more heard of. 

In the petition,^ the Society, though " lately established," 
claims it has " become generally extensive through the State, 
and we fully believe embraces on this subject the sentiments of 
a large majority of the citizens. From a sober conviction of 
the unrighteousness of slavery, your petitioners have long 
beheld with grief a considerable number of our fellow-men 

^ Orcutt's " Hist, of Torrington," p. 212. 

•^ WUson, " Rise and FaU," I., p. 26. 

^Poole, " Anti-SIaveiy Opinions before 1800," p. 50. 

^Presented to Congress, Dec. 8, 1791. Wilson, " Rise and Fall," 
I., p. 67. 

5 Found in ' INIemorials presented to Congress by Different So- 
cieties instituted for promoting tbe Abolition of Slavery." I'liila., 
1792, pp. 7-11. 



70 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [440 

doomed to perpetual bondage, in a country which boasts of 
her freedom ... The whole system of African slavery is 
unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles, and in its con- 
sequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the 
citizens of these States." They pray that Congress should, 
by constitutional means, " prevent, as much as possible, the 
horrors of the slave-trade, . . . prohibit the citizens of the 
United States from carrying on the trade,. . .prohibit for- 
eigners from fitting out vessels ... in the United States for 
transporting persons from Africa, . . . and alleviate the suffer- 
ings of those who are now in slavery, and check the further 
progress of this inhuman commerce." 

The same year^ in which this temperate appeal was written, 
Jonathan Edwards, Jr., speaking before the Connecticut 
Society, said, " Every man who cannot show that his negro 
hath by his voluntary conduct forfeited his liberty, is obliged 
immediately to manumit him." " To hold a man in a state of 
slavery who has a right to his liberty, is to be every day 
guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of man-stealing, and 
is a greater sin in the sight of God than concubinage or for- 
nication." In these trenchant words, as Wilson truly 
remarks,^ "was clearly promulgated the duty of immediate 
emancipation, as distinctly as it has ever been enunciated. . . 
before or since." 

Though not so extreme as this, when a proposition for a 
duty on slaves was before the Congress of the United States, 
at about the same time, Roger Sherman objected to this 
being included in the general import bill, saying," " He could 
not reconcile himself to the insertion of human beings as a 
subject of import, among goods, wares, and merchandise." 
On this same subject, some years later, Roger Griswold spoke 

' " Injustice nnd Impolicy of the Slave Trade and of tlie Slavery 
of tlie Africans, illustrated in a sermon before the Connecticut 
Society for the promotion of freedom and for the relief of persons 
imlawfully holden in. Bondage, at their annual meeting." By Jon- 
athan Edwards, D. D., New Haven, Sept. 15, 1791. 

•'Wilson, "Rise and Fall." I., 27. 

" Wilson, ''Rise and Fall," I., p. 56. 



441] History of Slafvery in Connecticut. 71 

against laying- a tax on imported slaves,' though he was 
opposed to the slave-trade, lest it should seem the United 
States raised money from commerce in slaves. The mass 
of the citizens of Connecticut at this time were evidently abo- 
litionists of a moderate type, believing, as did the Fathers of 
the Republic, that emancipation would come gradually. 
Tsleantime the movement towards liberty was growing, and 
vv^hen the Anti-Slavery Societies became strong enough to 
hold their first Convention at Philadelphia, on January i, 
1794, the Connecticut Society was represented by Uriah 
Tracy. On the 8th of May of the same year,' the day of the 
inauguration of the Governor, the Society was entertained 
by an address at the North (now Centre) Meeting House, 
delivered by Theodore Dwight, its secretary. His address 
was published, and it was probably from having seen or 
heard of it that Bishop Gregoire mentioned Dwight in the list 
of fifteen to whom he dedicated his " Literature of Negroes." 
In this list, it may be remarked, were the names of two other 
Connecticut men: Joel Barlow and Col. Humphreys. 

At the time of Dwight's address, there were Committees of 
Correspondence at Hartford,' and in New London, Windham 
and Tolland Counties. When the second Anti-Slavery Con- 
vention met at Philadelphia in 1795, Connecticut was repre- 
sented by Jonathan Edwards, Uriah Tracy, and Zephaniah 
Swift. The first of these was made chainiian of the com- 
mittee on business, and prepared an address to South Caro- 
lina,* appealing for " a numerous class of men, existing among 

^ In 1804. WUson, " Rise and FaU," I., p. 87. 

2Poole, "Anti-Slavery Opinions before 1800," pp. 50, 80. " Oi-a- 
tion Spoken liefore the Conn. Society for the Promotion of Free- 
dom and the Relief of Persons unlawfully Held in Bondage, Con- 
vened at Hartford on the 8th Day of INIay, 1794, by Theodore 
Dwight." Hai-tford, 1794, pp. 24, Svo. At that time Ohauncey 
vjoodrich was vice-president and Ezeldel Williams assistant 
secretary. 

=*At Hartford the Committee consisted of Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, 
Theodore Dwight, Thomas Y. Seymour, and Ezekiel WilUams, Jr. 
Trumbull's " Memorial Hist, of Hartford Co.," Vol. I. 

■» Poole, "Anti-Slaveiy Opinions," pp. 28, 77. 



72 History of Slavery -in Connecticut. [442 

you, deprived of their natural rights and forcibly held in bond- 
age." He called on the State to improve their condition and 
to educate them, and stated that by the slave-trade, of neces- 
sity, " the minds of our citizens are debased and their hearts 
hardened, by contemplating these people only through the 
medium of avarice or prejudice." 

The early anti-slavery feeling,' however, gradually died 
away in Connecticut, as elsewhere, and was succeeded by the 
colonization idea, as advanced by the American Colonization 
Societ}', of which Dr. Leonard Bacon wrote, " It is not a 
missionary society, nor a society for the suppression of the 
slave-trade, nor a society for the improvement of the blacks, 
nor a society for the abolition of slavery ; it is simply a society 
for the establishment of a colony on the coast of Africa." 
In the same line of thought, the New Haven Religious Intel- 
ligencer condemned measures calculated to bind the colored 
people to this country, by seeking to raise them to a level with 
the whites, whether by founding colleges or in any other 
way, " because it would divert attention and counteract and 
thwart the whole plan of colonization." It was this same 
spirit that aroused the opposition to ]Miss Crandall, and 
which opposed the attempt of a convention of free colored 
people in Philadelphia in 1831 to establish a collegiate school 
on the manual labor plan at New Haven. The idea of this 
convention was to raise $20,000 for this school, of which 
they stated $1000 was already offered, provided the rest 
should be subscribed. The reasons for their selecting New 
Haven were these: the site of the town was healthy and 
beautiful; the inhabitants friendly, pious, generous, and 
humane; the laws of Connecticut salutary and protected all 
without regard to complexion ; the boarding there was cheap 
and the provisions good; the situation was as central as any 
that could be obtained with the same advantages; the exten- 
sive West India trade of New Haven might induce many 
wealthv colored inhabitants of the West Indies to send tlieir 



' Wilson, " RLse and FiHl," I., p. 215. 



443] Eistory of Slavery in Connecticut. 73 

sons there for an education; and lastly, the literary and 
scientific character of New Haven renders it a desirable place 
to locate their college/ 

The plan was not looked upon with any pleasure in New 
Haven, and " created the most profound excitement and called 
forth the most determined resistance." The Mayor called 
a public meeting " to take into consideration a scheme said to 
be in progress for the establishment in this city of a college 
for tlie education of colored youth." At the meeting held 
September 8, 1831, resolutions were passed "that we will 
resist the establishment of the proposed college in this place 
by every lawful means," and, in the preamble, the citizens 
expressed their conviction that immediate emancipation and 
the founding of colleges for colored persons were unwar- 
rantable and dangerous interference with the internal con- 
cerns of the State, which ought to be discouraged. To these 
sentiments only one man, the Rev. Simeon S. Jocelyn, 
entered a protest. This opposition of the residents of New 
Haven rendered any attempt to carry out the convention's 
scheme futile. The party of the staUis qiio ante was triumph- 
ant throughout the State ; but, as often when the hour is the 
darkest, the daylight was at hand. 

However, there had never been lack of men to protest 
against human slaverv% and the halls of Congress had often 
heard bold sentiments from Connecticut men. In Novem- 
ber, 1797, when the Pennsylvania Quakers complained to 
Congress that slaves emancipated by Friends in North Car- 
olina had again been made slaves, Allen of Connecticut said 
he trusted the petition v/ou'ld not be rejected, as that would 
be disrespectful to a society revered by every man who sets 
value on virtue. In December, 1799, when the Southerners 
were raging on account of a petition from the negroes of 
Philadelphia for gradual emancipation, Edmond of Connec- 
ticut said they were acting with " inattention that passion 
alone could dictate." In the session of 1806-7, when South- 

• Williams, " Negro Race, "II., pp. 63. 64. Fowler. " Hist. Status." 
p. 151. 



74 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [444 

erners sneered at the North's opposition to the slave-trade, 
Moseley of Connecticut said if any of his section were con- 
victed of being- in the slave trade, his constituents would thank 
the South for hanging them.' In January, 1818, when a bill 
to enforce the fugitive slave law was under debate, Williams 
of Connecticut opposed a clause permitting freemen to be 
dragged to another part of the country, saying, " In attempt- 
ing to guard the rights of property to one class of citizens, it 
was unjust that the rights of another class should be put in 
jeopardy." 

In 1833, however, the influence of those in favor of imme- 
diate abolition of slavery began to be felt in Connecticut, con- 
tending with the pro-slavery and colonization influences. In 
that year, the New Haven Anti-Slavery Society was founded, 
being one of the first societies^ based on the principle of imme- 
diate, miconditional abolition. It sent its greetings to the old 
Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and received from it a cordial 
response. Among the leading spirits of the Connecticut 
Society were two clergymen,^ Samuel J. May and Simeon S. 
Jocelyn, both of whom were prominent at the organization of 
the American Anti-Slavery Society in December, 1833. 

The feeling of the learned and powerful city of New Haven 
was further shown in the public meeting called by the ]\Iayor 
and Council of the city to consider the report and resolutions 
of Charleston, S. C, held August 10, 1835, and sent to each 
incorporated city and town in the United States. Charles- 
ton's resolves were concerning " societies and individuals who 
have circulated incendiary publications through some of the 
vSouthern States," and were violently against anti-slavery pub- 
lications. Henr}^ S. Edwards acted as president of the New 
Haven meeting, and Noah Webster and David Daggett as 
vice-presidents. It passed resolutions condemning aboli- 
tionist publications, denouncing their being sent by mail. 



'Wilson, "Rise and Fall," I., pp. 73, 77, 82. 96. 
nVilson, " Rise and Fall," I., p. 25. 

■''May was Vice-President. Wilson, " Rise and Fall," I., 250 and 
260. 



445] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 75 

quoting a report of a committee of Congress in 1790 that that 
body " have no authority to interfere in the emancipation of 
slaves, or in the treatment of them in the different States, it 
remaining with the several States alone to provide any regu- 
lations therein which humane and true policy may require." 
To this utterance of non-interference, they coupled anotlier 
quotation from a letter of Oliver Wolcott, Sr., to his son of 
the same name. '' I wish that Congress would prefer the 
white people of this country to the black. After they have 
taken care of the former, they may amuse themselves with the 
other people."^ 

Hartford held a similar meeting on Sept. 26, 1835, and, 
v/ith Isaac Toucey as president and Elisha Phelps and Joseph 
Piatt as vice-presidents, affirmed that '• certain persons in the 
Middle and Eastern States have formed associations for the 
avowed purpose of effecting the abolition of slaver}^ in the 
other States, and in pursuance of said design, have established 
a press from which they issued several ne^vspapers and peri- 
odicals devoted to the aforesaid objects and filled with the 
most inflammatory matter, whereby the confederacy is endan- 
gered." 

In that same year a negro woman,^ who had fled from her 
master and lived in Hartford as a servant for several years, 
met a nephew of her former master on the streets of the city. 
He spoke kindly to her and told her his family had ceased to 
count her as their property, and tliat he had only friendly 
feelings for her. He continued that he had some clothing for 
her at the hotel where he was stopping, which he asked her to 

^Another resolution favored colonization in Africa. Fowler, 
" Local Law," pp. 96, 97. FuU text in Niles' Reg., Vol. 49, p. 73. 
R. S. Baldwin opposed these resolutions. On the same page in 
NUes' Reg. is a letter copied from the Middletown Advocate, and 
wiitten by Rev. Wilbur Fisk, first President of Wesleyan Univer- 
sity, stating that though he wished " freedom to the slave," he 
would sign no petitions for abolition of slaveiy, as " the ultra- 
abohtionists, by their imprudent movements and ill-timed and ill- 
managed system of agitation have, as I think, removed all hope of 
success in any measure of this kind at the present time." 

^Trumbull's " Hartford County," I., 609. 



76 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [446 

go with him and get. She incautiously went to his room on 
the third floor, when he locked the door to hold her prisoner. 
She rushed to the front window and leapt out, and, falling on 
an a^^^ling, escaped alive. ^Mr. Elisha Colt, in whose family 
she serv^ed, raised a purse and bought her, that he might set 
her free. 

Another fugitive slave in Hartford was Rev. James Pen- 
nington, D.D., who, escaping when a boy, was educated abroad 
at Heidelberg. He became pastor of the Talcott St. Church 
in Hartford, and being fearful of capture after the passage of 
the fugitive slave law of 1850, induced Gen. Joseph R. Haw- 
ley, then a young lawyer in the office of John Hooker, Esq., 
to visit his former owner and buy him for Mr. Hooker. Mr. 
Hooker held the deed for a day, to erjoy the sensation of 
owning a doctor of divinity, and then emancipated him. 

In 1836' the Connecticut Society, urged on by the Crandall 
case, started the Oiristian Freeman at Hartford, with Wm. 
H. Burleigh as editor. In 1845, that paper was merged in 
the Charter Oak, whose office was mobbed by a Democratic 
mob during the Mexican War, on account of the outspoken 
character of its sentiments. The Charter Oak was merged in 
the Republican in later 3'ears, that in the Evening Press, and 
that in the well known Hartford Conrant^ 

Under the stimulus of the zeal of the leaders of this 
new movement, violent discussion and debate sprang up 
throughout the State.^ Amos A. Phelps, a brilliant and 'able 
speaker, a native of Farmington, took the matter up in that 
town, and the church in the town was nearly rent in twain 
from the violence of the parties.* What nearly happened in 
Farmington came to pass in Guilford, where the pastor 

' The increased interest in the subject is shown by the mimber of 
pamphlets Issued upon slaverj^ in Connecticut about this time. 

2TrumbuIl's " Hartford County," I., p. 609. 

•■'Niles' Reg., Vol. 56, p. 410, has a lonj? letter from Rojrer M. 
Sherman, dated .Time 26, 1838, written to the National Anti-Slavery 
Society, in which, in dignified language, he states his opposition 
both to slaveiy and the methods of the abolitionists. 

•* Ti-umbidl's "Hartford Cc)untj%" 11., p. 102. 



447] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 77 

changed from tlie advocacy of colonization to that of aboli- 
tion, and caused such a bitter dissension that, though he 
eventually resigned and left the town, his followers, who con- 
stituted a minority in the old church, left and established an- 
other one, which remains separate to this day. In that town 
the use of the church was refused the local Anti-Slavery 
Society for its meetings, and in Norwich, which, on Oct. 14, 
1800, had directed its selectmen to instruct the town's repre- 
sentatives "to use their influence in obtaining a resolve. . . 
prohibiting the migration of negroes . . . from other States 
into this State," now the inhabitants in town meeting 
" Resolved that, as it is the duty of every good citizen to dis- 
countenance seditious or incendiary doctrines of ever}' sort, 
we do deny entirely tlie use of the Town Hall, or of any other 
building belonging to the town, for any purpose connect)ed 
in any way with the abolition of slavery.'"'" 

Miss Abbey Kelley,' a Quakeress, who spoke against 
slavery, was denounced from the pulpits in Litchfield County 
as " that woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess to 
teach and seduce my servants " ; but she and others gathered 
so many adherents that in January, 1837, a meeting was held 
at Wolcottville to organize an anti-slaver>' society. The 
gathering had to be in a barn, as churches and other public 
places were closed. Even there a mob broke up the meeting, 
which adjourned to Torrington Church, where it continued 
two days. The Litchfield County Sociey" so formed soon 
began holding monthly meetings in bams, sheds, and groves, 
and propagating its tenets by lectures, tracts, etc. 

^ Caulkins, " Norwich," p. 568. 

-Orcutt's "Tonington," pp. 212, 218. For tlie opposition an 
early anti-slavery advocate received in Washington, Litchfield 
County, see " The ]Master of the Gunneiy," a memorial volume to 
F. TV. Gunn. 

'Roger S. aiills of New Hailford was made president, Erastus 
Lyman of Goshen vice-president, with Gan. Daniel B. Brinsmade 
of Washington, Gen. Uriel Tuttle of Torringford, and Jonathan 
Coe of Winsted. Rev. R. M. Chipman of Harwinton was made 
secretary, and Dr. E. D. Hudson of Toningford treasurer. Tor- 
rington was the birthplace of John Brown of Ossawattomie and 
Harper's Feiry fame. 



78 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [448 

From 1840 onward, the progress of anti-slavery sentiments 
in Connecticut was gradual/ In 1840 she cast 174 votes for 
Birney; in 1844 she gave him 1943; in 1848 Van Buren 
received 5005; in 1852 Hale obtained 3160. Then under the 
influence of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill the State rapidly moved 
towards abolitionism. In 1854 the Anti-Nebraska candidate 
for Governor polled 19,465 votes; in 1856 Fremont carried 
the State and received 42,715 votes, and Connecticut was 
placed in the ranks of the Republican States for many years. 

Social Condition of Slaves. 

The slave showed the usual imitation of his white masters. 
We read of negro balls, negro governors, and negro training 
days. In religious affairs they, for the most part, were of the 
Congregational faith; few became Baptists or Methodists, 
as at the South. The annual election of a negro Gov- 
ernor' was a great event, and one, as far as I know, unique to 
Connecticut. It occurred as recently as 1820, and came off 
generally on the Saturday after election day. It was partici- 
pated in by all the negroes in the capital, and not only a 
governor, but also minor officers w^re chosen. They bor- 
rowed their masters' horses and trappings and had a grand 
parade after the election. " Provisions, decorations, fruits, 
and liquors were liberally " given them. " Great electioneer- 
ing prevailed, parties often ran high, stump harangues were 
made, and a vast deal of ceremony expended in counting the 
votes, proclaiming the result, and inducting the candidate 
into office, the whole too often terminating in a drunken 
frolic, if not a free fight," says one writer. Scaeva, in his 
" Sketches of Hartford in the Olden Time," adds other 



^ On Dec. 26, 1843, J. Q. Adams notes in his Diary that he pre- 
sented a petition from Connecticut for the abolition of slavery and 
the slave trade in the District of Colmnbia. Diary, XI.. 461. In 
1845 the Abolition or Liberty nominated full State and Congres- 
sional ticlcets. Niles' Reg., Vol. 68, p. 23. 1841 is the earUest year 
in which I find an AboUtion State ticket. Niles, Reg., Vol. 02, p. 80. 

"Caulkins, "Norwich," pp. 330. Stiles, "Windsor," I., 490. 



449] History of Slavery in Connecticut. 79 

touches. The negroes, " of course, made their election to a 
large extent deputatively, as all could not be present, but 
uniformly yielded to it their assent, . . , The person they 
selected for the office was usually one of much note among 
themselves, of imposing presence, strength, firmness, and 
volubility, who was quick to decide, ready to command, and 
able to flog. If he was inclined to be arbitrary, belonged to a 
master of distinction, and was ready to pay freely for diver- 
sions — these, were circumstances in his favor. Still it was 
necessary he should be an honest negro, and be, or appear to 
be, wise above his fellows." What his powers were was 
probably not well defined, but he most likely " settled all grave 
disputes in the last resort, questioned conduct, and imposed 
penalties and punishments sometimes for vice and miscon- 
duct." Such an officer is a remarkable instance of the 
negro's power of mimicry. In his election parade " a troop 
of blacks, sometimes one hundred in number, marching 
sometimes two and two on foot, sometimes mounted in true 
military style and dress on horseback, escorted him through 
the streets with drums beating, colors flying, and fifes, fiddles, 
clarionets, and every ' sonorous metal ' that could be found, 
'uttering martial sound.' After marching to their content, 
they would retire to some large room, which they would 
engage for the purpose of refreshments and deliberation." 

In Norwich," it would seem there was a special Governor 
for the negroes; for the graveyard contains a stone: "In 
memory of Boston Trowtrow, Governor of the African tribe 
in this Town, who died 1772." After him ruled Sam Hunt- 
ingdon, slave of the Governor of the same name, and he is 
described as, " after his election, riding through the Town on 
one of his master's horses, adorned with painted gear, his 
aids on each side, a /a mz/i^aire, himself puffing and swelling 
with pomposity, sitting bolt upright and moving with a slow- 
majestic pace, as if the universe was looking on. When he 
mounted or dismounted his aids flew to his assistance, hold- 



' Caulkins, " Norwich," p. 330. Vide Fowler, "Hist. Status," p. 
81. 



80 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [450 

ing his bridle, putting his feet into the stirrup, and bowing to 
the ground before him. The Great Mogul in a triumphal 
procession never assumed an air of more perfect self-import- 
ance than the negro Governor." 

Of negro trainings, Stiles in his " Ancient Windsor " tells 
amusing tales, and doubtless such occurred in many other 
towns w^here there Avere sufficient blacks. 

The Connecticut negroes, when freed, often left the State, 
and we have record that, w4ien Massachusetts passed an act 
on March 26, 1788, that "Africans, not subjects of Morocco 
or citizens of one of the United States, are to be sent out of 
the State," there were found nine negroes and twelve mulat- 
toes from Connecticut, though apparently not citizens of that 
State, as they were ordered to leave Massachusetts by a given 
day.^ We hear but little of fugitive slaves. Occasionally we 
come across advertisements in the old Connecticut papers 
for runaways, but these are but few and disappear as the 
years pass by.' Generally slaves were " most tenderly cared 
for" in the families of their masters until death, and were 
sold but seldom.'' Emancipations, beginning to be common 
just before the Revolution, increased more as time went on, 
and we frequently find applications on record to the select- 
men to free the masters from responsibility in case of eman- 
cipating slaves. 

It is said that at Torrington, when three men, joint owners 
of a female slave, in her old age hired her out to be cared for 
by a colored man, some indignation was raised. 

When emancipated, it is noticeable that the negroes, with 
their gregarious tendencies, left the country places and con- 
gregated in the larger towns.^ For example, in Suffield, 
where slaves were found as early as 1672, when Harn' and 
Roco, Major Pynchon's negroes, hel])ed build the first saw- 



^ Moore, " Notes on Slavery in Mass.," pp. 232-235. 
'^Vide Mas. of Am. Hist., XV., 614. 
3 Mag. of Am. Hist., XV., G14. N. H. Gazette, 1787. 
•'Maj,'. of Am. Hist.. XXI., 422. Caullcins, " Normch," p. 330. 
Truml)iill's " Hartford Coimty," IT., p. 199. 



451] Ulstorij of Slaveri/ in Connecticut. 81 

mill, and where before 1740 there were but few slaves, mostly 
owned by magistrates, parsons, and tavern-keepers, the num- 
ber of negroes was twenty-four in 1 756 ; thirty-seven in 1 774 ; 
fifty-three in 1782; twenty-eight in 1790; four in 1800. The 
last of these was manumitted in 181 2, and after a few years 
none were left in the town. They had been a social, happy 
race, some of whom had married there, and all of whom had 
been well cared for by their masters,'' but when freed they all 
drifted away to the cities, where they could have the society 
of others of their race. In the cities, special effort was made 
for the spiritual welfare of the negroes. In 181 5" the Second 
Church of Nonvich, under the leadership of Chas. F. Har- 
rington, began a Sunday School for blacks, and later the Yale 
students in New Haven took up the same work in the Temple 
Street and Dixwell Avenue Schools, the latter of which is 
still maintained. 

In general, Connecticut has little to be ashamed of in her 
treatment of the negroes. She treated them kindly as slaves 
and freed them gradually, thus avoiding any violent convul- 
sion. Though opposed to abolitionism and interference with 
slavery in another State, until the aggressive character of the 
slaveholding power was clearly manifested, she then swung 
into line with the rest of the Northern States to do away with 
it from the soil of the whole country. 

There is a steady and progressive development of the con- 
duct of the State towards slavery. Beginning with a survival 
of the idea that captives in war were slaves, as shown in the 
conduct towards the Pequods, Connecticut acquiesced thor- 
oughly in the principles of slavery through all the Colonial 
period. Her treatment of the slaves was almost always kind 
and generous. A master, in true patriarchal style, regarded 
them as in truth a part of his family.* With the coming of the 

'Trumbull's "Hartford County," II., p. 406. Fowler, "Hist. 
Status," p. 149, says in Durham in 1774 there were 44 negroes, in 
1868 only 3. 

-Caulkins, "Norwich," p. 556. Fowler, "Hist. Status," p. 150, 
speaks of eight negro churches in the State in 1873. 

3 Fowler, "Hist. Status," pp. 81-83, gives many interesting in- 
stances of this. 



82 History of Slavery in Connecticut. [452 

Revolution and the struggle of the Colonists for freedom, a 
feeling arose that it was not just to hold other men in bond- 
age, and as a result, importation of slaves was forbidden in 
1774. Negroes were allowed to fight side by side with the 
whites, and gradual emancipation was begun in 1784. The 
claims of the masters were, however, respected by saving their 
right to those they then held as slaves, and though manumis- 
sion was encouraged, the law put wise restrictions on the 
cruelty which would employ a man's best years in labor for 
another and leave him to be supported by public alms at last 
The case of Miss Prudence Crandall and of the Amistad 
proved effective reinforcements to the arguments of the 
Abolitionists, and the case of Jackson versus Bulloch showed 
that the courts were inclined towards the support of liberal 
interpretations of the anti-slavery laws. So when the formal 
abolition of slavery came in 1848, it found few to be affected 
by its provisions. The movement against slavery went on. 
From abolishing slavery within its borders, the State went on 
to fort)id the seizure of a slave on its soil, and then gladly 
joined with the otlier Northern States in the great struggle 
which ended in the destruction of slavery throughout the 
United States.' 

' In 1865, the question of negro suffrage was submitted to the 
voters and decided adversely by a vote of 27,217 to 33,489. In May, 
1869, the legislature, by a party vote, adopted the Fifteenth Amend- 
ment to the United States Constitution. The vote in the Senate 
stood 12 to 5, in the House 126 to 104. Fowler, p. 260. 



APPENDIX. 

In addition to the works quoted in the body of the 
monograph, the following may be mentioned as a part of 
the bibliography of this subject: 

Bacon, Leonard. " Slavery discussed in Occasional Essays 
from 1833 to 1846." New York, 1846. 

Beedier, Catharine E. "An Essay on Slavery and Aboli- 
tionism." Philadelphia, 1837. 

Bozune, Rev. George. " Picture of Slavery in the United 
States." Middletown, 1834. 

Dicki7ison, James T. " Sermon delivered in the Second 
Congregational Church, Norwich, July 4, 1834, at the 
Request of the Anti-Slavery Society of Norwich and 
Vicinity." Norwich, 1834. 

Fisk, Wilbur. " Substance of an Address delivered before 
the Middletown Colonization Society at the Annual 
Meeting, July 4, 1835." Middletown, 1835. 

Porter, Jacob, translator. " The Well-spent Sou, or Bibles 
for the Poor Negro." New Haven, 1830. 

Stuart, Charles. " The West India Question, reprinted from 
the English Quarterly Magazine and Review of April, 
1832." New Haven, 1833. 

Tyler, E. R. " Slaveholding a Malum in Se or Incurably 
Sinful." (2 editions.) Hartford, 1839. 

" Fruits of Colonization — the Canterbury Persecution." 

1833- 

May, SaimLel J. " The Right of Colored People to Educa- 
tion vindicated — Letters to Andrew T. Judson, Esq., 
and others in Canterbury, relative to Miss Crandall and 
her School for Colored Females." 1833. 

Vajt Buren, Martin. Message, 1840 (Amistad). 

Baldwin, Roger S.,2ind Adains, John Q. "Arguments before 
the United States Supreme Court in the Case of the 
African, Cinquez or Jinque." 



84 



History of Slavery in Connecticut. 



[454 



1680, 

1715, 
1730, 
1756, 
1762, 

1774, 
1782, 
1790, 
1800, 
1810, 
1820, 
1830, 
1840, 
1850, 
i860, 
1870, 
1880, 
1890, 



Slaves and Free Negroes in Connecticut. 

Slaves. Free Negroes. 

30, (Answers to Board of Trade), 
1,500, (Niles' Register, vol. 68, p. 310), 

700, (Answers to Board of Trade), 
3,634, (Fowler, " Hist. Status," p. 1 50), 
4,590, (Stiles MSS.), 
6,562, (Fowler, " Hist. Status," p. 150), 
6,281, 
2,759, (U- S. Census), 

951- 



310, 
97, 
25, 
17, 



2,801 
5,330 
6,453 
7,844 
8,047 
8,105 

7,693 
8,627 
9,668 

11,547 
12,302 



N. B. Negroes on the Amistad not counted in 1840. 



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REYUE HISTORIQUE 

Dirig^e par G. MONOD 

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DE 

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association pour l'enseignement des sciences anthropologk^ues 

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NOTES SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE STUDIES. 

The publication of a series of Notes was begun in January, 1889. The 
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MUNICIPAL, GOVERNBIENT IN ENGLAND. By Dr. ALBERT SHAW, of Minne- 
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SOCIAL WORK IN AUSTRALIA AND LONDON. By WILLIAM GKEY, of the 
Denison Club, London. 

ENCOUKAGEMKNT OF HIGHER EDUCATION. By Professor Herbert B. 

ADAMS. 

THE PROBLEM OF CITY GOVERNMENT. By Hon. Seth Low, President of 
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THE LIBRARIES OF BALTIMORE. By Mr. P. R. UHLER, of the Peabody In- 
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WORK AMONG THE WORKINGWOMEN IN BALTIMORE. By Professor 
H. B. ADAMS. 

CHARITIES: THE RELATION OF THE STATE, THE CITY, AND THE 
INDIVIDUAL TO MODERN PHILANTHROPIC W^ORK. By A. G. WARNER, 
Ph. D., sometime General Secretary of the Charity Organization Society of Baltimore, now 
Associate Professor in the University of Nebraska. 

LAW AND HISTORY. By Walter B. Scaife, LL. B., Ph. D. (Vienna), Reader on 
Historical Geography In the Johns Hopkins University. 

THE NEEDS OF SELF-SUPPORTING WOMEN. By Miss CLARE DE Graf- 
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THE ENOCH PKATT FREE LIBRARY. By LEWIS H. STEINER, Lltt. D. 

EARLY PKESBYTEKIANISM IN MARYLAND. ByKev. J. W. MClLVAIN. 

THE EDUCATIONAL ASPECT OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. By 
Professor O. T. MASON. 

UNIVERSITY EXTENSION AND THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FUTURE. 
By Richard G. moulton. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. By WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D., U. S. 
Commissioner of Education. 

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Br CHARLES H. LEVERMORE, Ph. D. 

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{Extra Volume Six of Studies in History and Politics.) 

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The Supreme Court of the United States. 

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Spanish Institutions of the Southwest. 

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{Extra Vol. Eleven of the Studies in History and Politics.) 

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